


Party Time

by ShadeDuelist



Series: TrossiDuelist stories [2]
Category: Team Fortress 2
Genre: Multi, Original Character-centric
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-01-21
Updated: 2015-01-21
Packaged: 2018-03-08 12:16:27
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 21,023
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3208814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ShadeDuelist/pseuds/ShadeDuelist
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>What happens when the people watching the Team Fortress 2 fights crave a little special treat and Mann Co. decides to give it to them?  Three teams vs three teams - and with the inter-team relationships being what they are, it promises to get fun...</p><p>Focuses on the engineers' views on the battles mostly (but not from their point of view).</p>
            </blockquote>





	Party Time

**Author's Note:**

> This story was motivated, inspired, sanctioned and okayed by Trossidevil, my one and only Party Engie :D Darlin', yew an' me, we're gon' have a lot 'f fun yet!
> 
> Teams involved:  
> The REDs and BLUs of 'Sinner's Fire' (mine)  
> The REDs and BLUs of 'Of Hard Hats and Baseball Bats' (mine)  
> The REDs and BLUs of 'Sore Losers' (Trossidevil's)

“Welcome, teams!” The small, wispy woman at the front of the group didn't look at all familiar to Dwight, but she seemed to be more likeable than the Administrator, at least, so he was willing to forget the way she seemed nervous at the sight of the twenty-six men and the lone woman in front of her. “You've all been called here for a, uh, _special project_. As you all know, the battles that you fight are recorded and then sold as-”

“As a kind of sportin' event – yeah, yeah, miss Pauling, we know, jus' skip over that!”, someone from one of the other groups said – judging by the boy's slender build and his uniform, he was a scout, and his mousy brown hair made Dwight think of Raphael and blush. So great was his distraction that Teresa had to gently nudge him into paying attention again.

“...so the idea of today is to make things a little more interesting. Normally, you're all used to the opposite team having just _one_ member of each class – one pyro, one spy, one medic... but today, there'll be three of all-”

“Uh, 'scuse me, miss?” The accent in the voice was unmistakeable, Dwight found, and he looked at the man that had spoken to see a man dressed just like him, but with a more angular face and eyes that had a somewhat calculating glint in them. “Ah'm not real sure, but ah count _four_ snipers 'ere-”

“Oh, yes, that's right, I keep forgetting that the Teufort teams have one extra member... Thank you for the reminder, mister Adams.”, the little wispy miss Pauling corrected, causing Dwight to look at the other group, who did indeed have _two_ snipers. “Then I should warn you all – especially you, misters Dillinger, Markham and Adams – that your enemies for the day will be _four spies_ strong.”

“Aw _hell, four_ spahs...” Before Dwight could speak, the other RED engineer said exactly what he'd wanted to voice: looking at the other man, he could see a shock of receding red hair that the man scratched through before putting his hardhat on again.

“Four spies, and three of all the other classes. The aim for the day is to capture intelligence – with multiple members of each class, strategies change. We're giving you half an hour of set-up time to coordinate your offensive and defensive strategies with the members of the other teams – make sure to take everything into account, because you can be attacked from multiple directions. Make sure every entryway to the intelligence room is covered, and covered well...”

“'Cause the other teams are gonna do that, too.”, the tallest man in the room, proudly wearing the pyro's flameproof uniform, finished the woman's sentence, causing the little wispy woman with the clipboard to blush for some reason and look away from him, something that Teresa did as well but which caused the third pyro of their large group to grin broadly.

“...Mister Dantan has a point.”

“...Mister Dantan _always_ has a point, that's the problem...”, Teresa muttered – just as Dwight meant to ask his friend what she meant by that comment, the mousy little woman cleared her throat and motioned for the door that'd lead them to their battlefield for the day.

“I'll leave you to prepare for the battle now. It'll be a standard battle – whichever team manages to get the intelligence five times, wins. Pyros...”, she said, to which Teresa and her two male colleagues instantly looked up, all attention, “...you'll have a more strenuous job today, as there's one spy more than you-”

“Miss Pauling, don't worry, we'll toast _all four_ of the cabróns!”, the second pyro said, to which the taller blonde one chimed in with a broad, almost cruel grin, Dwight found.

“Yeah, those four spies'd better fuckin' _run their asses off_.”

“...Engineers, the same goes for you. Be mindful of the danger. Snipers...”

“We'll keep a bloody oye out fer 'em.”, Lyndon said, giving Dwight a light smile – the two snipers from the one team and the lone sniper from the other merely grinned and nodded, which caused the mousy young woman to nod once, allowing herself a soft half-smile.

“...I'm sure you'll manage to keep the BLU teams well away from your intelligence rooms. Remember, there is no time limit today – five captures of the enemy intelligence is the only way to win. If it takes you all day and all night, then so be it. And to make sure you're constantly kept on your toes, only capturing the intelligence will make sure your supply closets get stocked with supplies _other_ than ammunition.”

“No sweat, we can manage!”, Harvey loudly said – Dwight gave his friend a warm smile that somehow got the scout to blush and look away again, but inwardly he felt a little less than secure in his ability to stay up all night, no matter the circumstances. As if sensing his thoughts, Teresa patted his shoulder and gave him a look that clearly communicated that they'd work out that problem when the time came: the female pyro had a knack for knowing when he worried overmuch, he'd learnt, something that came in handy as she was the one that stayed by his side for spychecking most.

“...In half an hour, the horn will sound to signal the start of battle. Good luck, RED teams.”, the woman said before walking out the door, leaving the teams to mingle. Dwight meant to join his fellow engineers – the red-haired one seemed to want to wave him over anyways – but Teresa held him back with a soft-spoken word.

“...Wait... let me introduce you to the other pyros first, since I know them already, that way it'll be easier for you and the others to think of a good strategy to work from. ...Gabriel, Jarrod, come over here for a second?”

“Si, hermosa, hang on a second...”, the dark-haired pyro said, turning to speak a few words to some of the others of his team – the scout and one of the snipers in particular, he noticed – before walking over with a smile that had an off effect on the scarred side of his face. “Ya needed me?”, he asked, winking at her to soften the statement; but rather than Teresa answering him, the other pyro – the blonde giant of a man – boomed out in response.

“Jarrod, le seul qui t'a besoin, c'est toi-même. 'Sides, this is _Reese_ we're talkin' about, she'd kill you if ya laid a finger on her wrong. ...Her friend on the other hand... oh hell, he wouldn't mind bein' touched by you, right _or_ wrong...”, he said – Dwight blushed profusely when he caught on that the man meant him, which was only half false if he was completely honest to himself, because the dark-haired pyro did look handsome, but he seemed like too much of a joker. Fortunately for him, Teresa came to his defense readily.

“Guys, please keep yourselves in check, I can take your special charms but this battle is going to be hard enough as it is on Dwight-”

“Ah, so _this_ is the rare an' elusive Dwight! Heh, should'a guessed from the uniform... well, pleased to meet ya, man. The name's Gabriel Dantan, I'm from the RED team from Jacksonville, Illinois, and I'm the guy that lights spies the fuck up for my own engie. You're from the Frontier team?”

“Heh, ah wish... naw, we're from the desert team, Reese an' me. Used tuh fightin' underground.”

“Ah, then this is gonna be right up your alley, hombre! ...Oye, digas...”, he started, and Dwight motioned for the two other engineers, that were now talking softly together.

“We ought'a go an' talk tuh yer team's engineers, fellers – yew comin', Reese?”, he asked, prompting his friend to shoulder her Backscratcher and nod, walking alongside him and her two colleagues to the other engineers. The one that greeted Jarrod the latin pyro was a little taller than him, Dwight noticed, probably standing about Teresa's height, but the other man was shorter than he was, though that probably meant he would be twice as fierce and tenacious in battle. The shorter of the two was also the first one to speak to him.

“Howdy there, pardner. Mah name's Grant Dillinger, ah'm from Dante's team-”

“Dante?”, Dwight asked – the tall pyro groaned and glared at his teammate, explaining in his stead.

“Yeah, the guys on my team are _idiots_ that seem to think callin' me 'Dante''s easier than tryin' to pronounce my last name the right way, 'Dahn-tahn'. Of course _Grant_ prefers only calling me by my _full_ last name when he's _really_ fuckin' pissed off at me for whatever the hell I manage to do wrong-”

“Dante, son, clean yer language fer jus' one day, would yeh? ...Aw, if'n Sam were here t'keep yeh in check-”, the engineer said – as the conversation proceeded around him, Dwight's confusion only grew exponentially, it seemed.

“Don't remind me, damn it, she's over there talkin' strategy with _James fuckin' Henderson –_ the only goddamn luck I have today is that I get to brutally murder the salaud every fuckin' way I can think of with no trouble whatsoever.”

“Yeah, the pendejo is gonna burn today.”, the dark-haired pyro chimed in, and both men started eagerly discussing bloody and admittedly creative ways to kill off whoever 'James Henderson' was.

“...Uh, 'scuse me fer askin', but who's James Henderson? A-an' who's Sam?”, Dwight asked, unable to contain his curiosity – the two male pyros were deeply absorbed in their conversation, and Teresa looked at the two other engineers helplessly before Grant sighed and nodded, signaling that she could go talk to her colleagues while he took care of the explanation to Dwight.

“...Sam's Gabriel's counterpart on our base's BLU team – the pah-ro, tha' is – an' she's also his girlfriend-”

“Cross-team relationship, huh?”, the other engineer that hadn't yet introduced himself said smartly, rolling his eyes. “Ain't work out too well usually.”

“Uh... now might be a good time t'mention ah'm in one'a those too – got mahself a partner on BLU. The scout, Raphayel Bourne. Quick guy, an' ah don't mean jus' quick on 'is feet, ah mean he's a good thinker too-”, Dwight said before realizing that he was praising his boyfriend maybe a little too enthusiastically, halting halfway and clearing his throat ostensibly. “Anyway, th'other guy, James Henderson-” The third engineer spoke up in explanation, his voice betraying his annoyance at the man in question.

“He's the BLU pahro fer our base at Teufort. Good as they come, sadly, an' brutal, too. He's real mean with 'is Backscratcher. He's also the idjit tha' gave Jarrod them nice burn scars yeh see 'im with.” Dwight winced, as did Grant, both engineers looking at the scars that marred the entire right-hand side of the pyro's face, and the other engineer was the one that spoke up.

“Ouch, bet tha' made 'im real loved by yer Jarrod.”

“'Ey, he ain't _my_ Jarrod, he ain't my _nuthin'_. Nothin' but trouble, tha' there man. ...Anyway, James Henderson also were enough'f an idjit tuh try an' git that Sam 'a yers tuh sleep with 'im. Jarrod told me 'bout how he an' that Gabriel feller took revenge on 'im. James weren't fit fer a full week, he kept gittin' killed off an' sent tuh respawn. He got real fierce whenever he came 'cross Jarrod, though. Not that he weren't 'fore...”

“...Pardner, y'ain't told us yer name yet.”, Dwight said softly; the third engineer looked at him in confusion before groaning and shaking his head.

“S'pose ah forgot tuh do so... ah'm Eric Adams. An' yew are...?” Only then did Dwight catch on that he hadn't introduced himself just yet, causing him to blush softly and quickly rectify that mistake.

“Dwight Markham. From the desert team. Reese 'ere's mah team's pahro. ...So, uh, let's discuss strategy... 's there anyone of yer BLUs that we need tuh watch out fer in particular? Apart from them spahs, that is.”, he said, and the other two engineers looked pensive for a second before Eric spoke up first.

“Well, there's their sniper, Jerry, he's purdy damn mean... Oh, an' James, 'course. Like ah said, he's real good with 'is Backscratcher. Other 'n that... the usual. Watch out fer the demomen an' the soldiers. Watch everythin' twice, make sure none'a them spahs git closer 'n shotgun range.”

“An' if that fails...”, the other engineer, Grant, said with a mean grin, patting the modified wrench on his belt, drawing Dwight's eyes to it and then away again.

“Pardner, y'ain't serious, are yeh?”, he asked, prompting the other engineers to look at him in mild confusion until a disembodied voice drifted towards them.

“Dwayet ees still peaceful at 'eart, mes amis, zat ees not zee bad sink all zee time. 'E 'as zee good 'ead for zee battle plans, 'e just does not like zee shootink.” From the right, Amaric slowly became visible, the pinkish smoke billowing off him before dissipating into thin air. “Bonjour, mon ami. Laindon 'as sent me over to make sure you felt à l'aise with zee uzzer ingénieurs.”

“They're awright, even if'n their methods...” Another look at the shorter engineer's wrench preceded Dwight's sigh. “...Even if'n their methods ain't mah own. ...Uh, we were discussin' strategy, Amayree, mind hangin' around fer tha'?”

“Not a problem – Laindon ees talkink to 'is sree collègues, so 'e won't miss me, and 'e certainement won't need me, 'ow do you say... _fussink_ over 'im.”, the spy admitted with a grin that put Dwight's mind at ease. “...Dwayet, mention zat zee BLU engineer-”

“Aw hell, ah fergot 'bout Lance...”, the engineer admitted, groaning and running his hand through his dark blonde hair before putting his hardhat back on as he elaborated: “...Yeah, uh, the BLU team we fight over in th'desert, they got a _mean_ mother-hubbard fer an engie. Man's name's Lance Henderson, an' he ain't yer run-in-th'mill engineer. Fer one, he has a personal vendetta 'gainst me, so yeh'll prob'ly see 'im come fer us once or twice durin' this 'ere battle...”

“What'd he try t'achieve with tha'?”, Eric asked, and Dwight shrugged before continuing.

“...an' yeh'll also notice he's got what he calls a 'Gunslinger'-”

“Hell, ah thought the comp'ny were _kiddin'_ about those.”, the shorter engineer, Grant, said, shaking his head while looking at his feet in shock, while the other engineer looked a little nonplussed. Fortunately, the other man explained for their mutual colleague, in simple but brutal terms: “A 'Gunslinger''s a prosthetic hand – made'a metal. Works jus' like a sentry but kin do a lot finer work 'n an actual hand. Ain't well-suited fer luggin' around heavy sentries, though – tha' there prosthetic's wired intuh the unlucky mother-hubbard's arm, so if't he tries t'lift a sentry, half'a his _arm_ would come off. ...He'll be buildin' a quick-build, lightweight mini-sentry. Looks like a cute li'l gun until she fires-”

“Pfeh, ah'd like tuh see tha' li'l gun match up t' _mah_ sentry.”, Eric said, patting his PDA – Dwight meant to respond to that, only for the horn to sound and the soldiers to instantly bellow out to their teams to 'fall in'. Gordon's voice in particular was loud and commanding, Dwight found.

“ _ALL OF YOU YELLOW-BELLIED MAGGOTS, STOP YOUR TEA-TIME GOSSIP AN' GET SOME BATTLE ACTION NOW!!! Hut-hut-hut-hut- MOVE IT, PEOPLE!!_ ” When Dwight passed him, the man saluted respectfully, as always, and he saluted back, causing Lyndon and Amaric to snort with laughter and Duncan to tease the soldier mercilessly as they moved to the respawn room to wait for the second horn to sound and the battle to commence. Behind him, Eric and Grant from the other teams walked ahead of their respective teammates, with Gabriel and Jarrod the pyros still eagerly discussing creative ways to toast some unfortunate members of BLU, mainly the sniper, the pyro and the spies of the team Jarrod regularly fought, and the rest also talking some quick last-minute strategies. The anticipation for this new, ever-so-different battle grew in Dwight, making his heart feel at once constrained and hyper-energized in his chest and causing him to cast a pleading look at Teresa, who walked right next to him.

“...Just take it easy. This battle isn't any different from our usual fights. We have more of every class, they have more of every class... but it'll always come down to the same thing. Whose bullets _hit_ and whose _miss_.” That didn't exactly cheer him up, Dwight found, but it did make the situation feel less out of his control. Lightly running his hand over the handle of the gun he'd built for himself, he nodded and walked on with new energy and tenacity.

 

“...Awright, that's the last'f it!”, Grant said, leaning back against the wall to look in pride and satisfaction at the cosy little 'engineer's nest' he'd built up. The three of them – him, the fearful engineer who had introduced himself as Dwight and the shrewd guy Eric – had decided that they'd each guard a different approach to the intel room. He'd drawn the short straw and got to defend the hallway leading directly to the intel room from the main room, where there was a fierce battle going on if the sounds of explosions, gunshots and dying screams were anything to go by. Dwight, who had looked like a deer caught in headlights most of the time, had gotten the easiest duty and was set up in the vent system that led into the intel room. And finally, Eric, who seemed to be the shrewdest and most battle-hardened of the three of them, was set up right outside the respawn room, stopping any BLUs that tried to bring the battle to their doorstep and also keeping them from using that line of approach to make it to their intelligence room. It wouldn't be the first time that a scout whizzed past using a can of Bonk!, he mused. He'd seen it often enough on his own battlefield, with both Archie from BLU and his own team's scout Billy.

“...Yo, Grant, how ya holdin' up, man? Where are the otha two hardhats?” It seemed like thinking of the scout had summoned him to his side: he walked over leisurely, his sawed-off shotgun resting loosely on his shoulder and his grin firmly in place.

“Yeh know where they are, Billy, don't yeh try an' kid me.”, Grant said, causing the scout to roll his eyes and shrug.

“Okay, yeah, _don't_ tell me then. ...I'm gonna see if I can shoot up some BLUs out there, wish me luck, man!”, the scout said as he took his gun firmly in both hands and ran off through the corridor, heading in the direction of the fighting, prompting the engineer to shake his head. The going was slow, what with the others keeping a good watch over the gate that led to their respawn room and the wide open hallway that led to his position. Yet they couldn't see everything – a spy, cloaked or disguised as one of their own, could easily slip past to wreak havoc, and there were _four_ spies running around – not to mention the others had to push for the others' intelligence as well, since miss Pauling had said that the battle would last until they'd captured the others' intel briefcase five times. He hadn't seen any enemies yet, but he also hadn't seen any of their own running in with the other team's briefcase fastened on their back either, which told him that the battle was currently at a stalemate.

“...Awh hell...”, he sighed, drawing the attention of a pyro that ran past. When the gas mask was removed, it turned out to be Teresa, the female pyro that Gabriel had introduced him to quickly before the start of battle: her eyebrowless features showed surprise, prompting him to speak on: “...Don't yeh mind me, miss, ah were jus' thinkin' how dull this 'ere battle is fer us engineers.”

“Don't jinx it.”, she said with a generous, warm smile that got Grant smiling as well. It even managed to linger as she spoke on: “I've just made my rounds – Eric was complaining just as much as you, and Dwight was talking to Harvey who didn't look like he was leaving-”

“Yer engineer said he were havin' 'imself a li'l somethin' with yer _BLU_ team's scout, didn't he?”, Grant asked, and Teresa nodded.

“Yes – but he fell for Harvey before he fell for Raphael. And it's mutual. Only Harvey didn't realize that he had a shot with Dwight before... well, before it was too late. ...Anyway, I'm off to check the rest of the hallway. I'll be back in about half an hour – Jarrod's coming this way in fifteen-”

“An' Gabe?”

“Gabriel is helping the offense team. He's more offensive anyway-” Grant couldn't help it: he laughed loudly at Teresa's choice of words, which promoted the pyro to chuckle along merrily, her eyes closed and her expression brightening. “I mean he's more suited for offense than defense anyway. Running around checking for spies and hanging around the dispensers of engineers does not suit him. Though Dwight might be able to tempt him, of course.”

“Yeah, nah, let's hope not. Suhmantha from BLU ain't gon' be real fergivin'. Unless she likes Dwight, then she'd prob'ly jump right in there.”

“Don't remind me... those two are _terrible_. They were with Jarrod at the last pyro evaluations.”

“Jarrod, he's th'other flamer, righ'? The one that looks like he had an accident with 'is flamethrower?” Grant rolled his eyes, remembering the description Gabriel had given of the man all too well. “...He's got the same 's Dante has.”

“Sí. Jarrod's a pyromaniac too. But he didn't give himself those burn scars, those come from his enemy pyro, James Henderson.”

“Mother'a mercy, the BLU Teufort pahro did tha' tuh 'im? ...Poor feller... must'a taken some damn firepower fer 'im tuh keep the damn scars through respawn...”, he said, and Teresa paled slightly.

“N-not... not quite... they, uh... it's a long story.” Grant rolled his eyes and motioned around himself.

“Don't look like ah'm goin' nowhere, dahlin', so tell us tha' there story...” Grant listened, with increasing disgust at the company and increasing horror reserved for his RED colleagues from Teufort, as Teresa told him what she'd learnt from the other pyro about his respawn system. “...Hell, an' ah thought our glitchy respawn were bad 'nough... _despawn disks? A black team keepin' an eye on the battles over there?_ Hell, it oughta sound crazy, but with what ah know 'bout tha' there comp'ny, _nuthin'_ sounds crazy no more.”

“Es verdad, amigo... isn't that the truth... Well, that's still nothing compared with what they did to _us_ , of course-” Just when Grant meant to speak up and ask her what she meant, a voice boomed from the intelligence room.

“ _CHERE I COME!! Yatatatatatatata..._ ” It was one of the Heavies, of course, but which one was impossible to tell until a flash of blue cloth showed from behind the wall and his sentry instantly revved up, shooting a couple of rockets in the direction of the intruder, who groaned but then came around the corner fully, glowing like a lantern in an eerie blue light.

“ _Chingao!”_ , Teresa cursed – Grant didn't understand much Spanish, but _that_ was one word he _did_ know – before running into the intelligence room through the other door just as the heavy weapons expert showed his face on the other side, shooting at Grant's sentry. The engineer kept up repairing his sentry with the extra parts his dispenser provided him with, but only barely: slowly but surely, the Heavy's minigun fire was eating away the integrity of his sentry, smoke rising from the outer casing showing that wires were shoddily replaced on the inside... and then, just as abruptly as the Übercharge had been deployed, it died away again. Too soon, even.

“V-vhot?!”, the hulking Russian said – and that was all he managed to say, because Grant's sentry shot two more rockets and then another band of ammunition into the man, splattering his remains all over the corner of the corridor. Meanwhile, from the inside, the highly pained scream of something incomprehensible in German followed and a second later, Teresa came running back out of the intel room, looking grim.

“I didn't know them, so they were probably your BLU team or Jarrod's, amigo-”

“Ah knew 'em. Yaroslav an' Siegfried. Good fighters but not good 'nough tuh beat both a pahro an' an engineer with full gear... but what ah'm wonderin' is how they came 'ere-” The answer for that became apparent a second later, when Dwight came running down the stairs leading to the intelligence rooms and then up to Grant and Teresa, stopping in front of them out of breath and blushing madly.

“They, uh, caught up with Jarrod, an' ah tried tuh stop 'em but they tore through mah machines like they weren't even there, pardner, 'm sorry... Reese, y'allright?”, he asked, and the pyro nodded.

“I should get moving again though. Jarrod'll be coming from respawn as well-”

“Came out 'fore me an' ran tuh 'is own engie. Heard the man cussin' at 'im-”, Dwight said, and Grant found, to his surprise, that his fellow engineer's blush deepened somewhat when he added: “Y'oughta tell yer Jarrod-”

“Jarrod isn't mine, Dwight, just because we're both from south of the border...”, the Mexican pyro flared up instantly, only to deflate completely when Dwight nodded and patted her shoulder soothingly.

“'s not why ah said it, Reese, pardner. Don't yeh deny yeh like Jarrod an' consider 'im a friend'a yers, jus' like that Gabriel feller, an' maybe even closer... naw, jus'... maybe tell 'im mah ma were Mexicana too? I maybe ain't much use at speakin' Spanish but ah sure understand it, an' he were tellin' that Eric feller tuh do stuff with 'is wrench an' 'is sentry ah don't think no one oughta consider fer a lot 'f reasons. Mainly gun safety an' medical reasons.”

“Mierda, like it's Eric's fault he got shot up by a Heavy-” Suddenly, right next to Grant, the sentry revved up again and one of the three BLU pyros that had rounded the corner got a rocket right in the face, splattering blood and viscera over most of the hallway beyond. They heard a startled shout coming from around the bend.

“ _Holy shit_ , man!” Suddenly, Dwight paled and grabbed his shotgun.

“Raphayel, don't yew come 'round that corner, y'hear! Run like the wind back t'yer team, git more support if'n yeh really wanna come capture tha' there intel, but y'ain't comin' here jus' tuh git shot!”, the engineer shouted – as the sound of running footsteps died away, Grant groaned and turned to Dwight.

“Whut in tarnation 'd yew do that fer, Markham?!”

“Yeah, well, _yew_ maybe like it when a friend'a yers gits shot by yer sentry, but ah sure 's all hell ain't like it. 'Specially not mah lover.” Gritting his teeth, Dwight checked and finetuned the small device he'd soldered onto his shotgun that kept count of his sentry kills and sighed. “...Darn, lost 'em.”

“'s that a Frontier Justice?”, Grant asked, eyeing the shotgun. It didn't look like a typical Frontier Justice gun. When Dwight spoke, he found his mouth agape with the reason the man gave for it.

“Uh, ah dunno... ah made this 'ere gun mahself from some scrapped parts ah had. ...But ah s'pose that she is, yeah. Keeps track'a mah sentry's kills an' assist kills an' gives me crits when someone breaks 'er. Which is a purdy darn hard thing tuh manage-”

“Ah, sí, Dwight, your sentry, you completely forgot to tell Eric and Grant about your sentry!”, Teresa said with a grin. Blinking, Grant looked from the pyro to her team's engineer and back in clear confusion.

“...Tell us _whut_ 'bout yer sentry? Ah saw 'er, she's jus' another sentry... standard model, jus' like all'a ours...” Dwight winked at Grant and started explaining, and soon only one word, loud but spoken with the appropriate reverence, echoed through the hallway and the intelligence room beyond it.

“ _S-suh-sapper-proofed?!_ ”

 

“Jarrod, _git_!”, Eric ground out, but the pyro cast him a loathful glance and then leaned his head down onto the dispenser's heartrate monitor again, causing the machine to issue an extra 'blip' every half-second. “Ah'm not _kiddin'_ , Jarrod, yeh're not sulkin' here like a big baby 'cause yeh got offed by a Heavy-”

“I didn't get offed by the _Heavy_ , pendejo, I got killed by the fuckin' _medic_ shovin' his bonesaw halfway up my _brain_. I can still feel it!”, the pyro hissed, and Eric groaned again.

“So what? _Git along_ , Jarrod – if'n yeh really wan' go bother an engineer, go tuh tha' Dwight feller, he kin use some extra protection-” The moment he said it, Jarrod straightened and paled at the same time.

“Chingao, Dwight, he was toast too, they must've gotten through until that other engie! Okay, I'll go check on him.” However, before he ran off, he dug his gloved hands into Eric's toolbox and dug out two beers, which he raised teasingly as he ran around Eric in a wide arc, laughing as Eric shouted at his retreating back.

“ _Dangerfeld,_ yew do tha' again an' ah'm skinnin' yeh with a blunt damn knife, y'hear?!” When the retreating pyro made a very rude hand gesture, he added: “With a _soup spoon, Dangerfeld!_ ”

“...Ees zat charmink pyro geevink you zee 'ard time?”, came a suave voice from the right and a puff of pinkish smoke revealed one of their own spies leaning casually against the wall. It wasn't his own team's spy, that much Eric knew, because Vincent was Italian and not French, but it could very well be the spy from that Dwight's team. Clearly, the man noticed his confusion, because he lifted his balaclava to reveal almost shoulder-length slightly greying blonde hair and a boyishly charming face. “...I am from Dwayet's team. Amaric.”

“Amareek, yew don't know jus' how 'charmin'' tha' there pahro kin be-”, Eric admitted, shaking his head, and the spy rolled his eyes.

“I 'ave a good idea. Teresa told us all zee stories of 'er last evaluation. Et elle nous a dit... she 'as told us what 'as 'appened between your Jarrod-”

“Why's ev'ryone insist he's _mah_ Jarrod suddenly? He's on th'same team as me, he ain't mah _pet dog_ or nuthin'! If'n he listens tuh me, it's 'cause he happens tuh _wanna_ listen, not 'cause ah kin control 'im!”, the engineer said in clear exasperation, which caused the spy to throw his hands up in defense.

“I did not mean eet as zee eensult, mon ami malin... Anyway, Teresa 'as told us what 'appened with Jarrod, et Gabriel, et Samantha from BLU. Enlightenink, j'dois le dire.”

“Yeah, _real_ enlightenin' tuh hear he were even _dirtier_ 'n he is on our base...”, the engineer said, rolling his eyes. Then, however, he sighed and shook his head: “...But y'ain't know what happened after tha'. James Henderson – 's the pahro fer Teufort's BLU team-”

“Ah, say no more.”, Amaric said, shaking his head with a look that held the middle between disgust and apprehension. “...Teresa 'as not told much, but zat name 'as been mentioned. Il était stupide, en essayant de séduire Samantha... 'ow do you say, 'e was stupid enough to try and seduce Samantha from BLU. Gabriel, 'o ees 'er boyfriend, deed not like eet. So 'e et Jarrod plotted zee revenge. Dey got James drugged – Eileen explained later 'ow she managed eet, et j'ai à peu près eu pitié de l'ingénieur BLU... Donc, ils l'ont drogués et après... and dey took 'im back to zeir hôtel, where dey called a prostituée, pretendink to be 'im, and...”

“An' asked fer a li'l somethin' _special_ – y'ain't gotta sugarcoat it fer me, mister Amareek, ah _know_ whut they asked fer. James weren't fit fer an entire week, an' he became fierce 's all hell whenever he met with Jarrod... he were lookin' fer revenge. An' when there weren't no good enough opportunity fer _'im_... he called a favor from Jerry, the BLU sniper. ...let's jus' say Jarrod's gonna wanna light tha' Aussie mother-hubbard the hell up fer a _long_ time tuh come...”, he said somewhat meekly, and Amaric paled.

“You mean 'e... _que c'est incroyable!_ Donc Jean-Marie, mon collègue – non, j'dois dire la vérité, mon _ami cher..._ so my friend from BLU, 'e ees workink togezzer with des barbares et des violeurs?”

“Yeah, well, y'ain't gonna find no friends 'f mine in _our_ BLU team, 's fer dayum sure, Amareek... but yew an' Dwight an' Teresa, yeh seem real close tuh yer BLU team. Dwight told me 'bout that scout'a his, Raffyel-”

“Raphael? Ah, oui... I am afraid dat zey are not zee only ones. Teresa's amante ees zee BLU pyro, Eileen.” Now Eric looked at the spy in clear and utter disbelief.

“S-so yeh mean that yer friend, tha' there sweet-lookin' Mexican number, has 'erself a li'l somethin' with _yer BLU team's pahro?_ Well, _darn_ -”

“Ah, were you eenterested? ...You are not zee only one. Your Jarrod, when 'e first met 'er, was also eenterested. Dis 'appened back when Eileen et Teresa were not yet togezzer, but j'pense... I theenk eet was zee reason why Eileen and Teresa became amantes. Eileen était jalouse de Jarrod. Steel ees, même, j'pense.”

“Yeah, well, give that Chili flame-crazy sunovabitch someone tuh screw 'round with – man, woman, tall, short, fair or dark – an' he ain't gon' say no... an' somehow he keeps 'em comin' back, so ah'm guessin' he ain't _bad_ at it neither... Ah, anyway, so tha' lovely Mexican girl from yer team's t'gether with yer BLU team's pahro?”

“Ah, oui, for nearly four years, je pense qu'elles ont dites... She ees not attracted to zee men... only, per'aps, with a few exceptions of platonic love. L'amour sans d'l'moindre attraction physique. Mon BLU collègue ees dear to 'er, as well as Dwayet... and she eesn't too adverse to m'sieur Jarrod-”

“Yeah, like ah said, he may be flame-crazy an' dirty-minded but he's gotta have somethin' t'keep his pardners comin' back fer more.” Sighing, Eric then motioned for the door leading to the main room of their battlefield, beyond which the battle was still going fiercely. “...We oughta focus on tha' there battle, son, instead'a gossipin' about our teams.”

“Oui, bien sûr... I weel get one of zee ozzers to come and 'elp you, d'accord?”, Amaric said, disappearing again in a puff of pinkish smoke and running off, leaving Eric standing alone, contemplating how odd it was that the other teams seemed to get along a lot better with their enemies – or, he amended the thought, how odd it was that the other teams seemed to get along with their enemies at all. Then again, one of the men from the RED team that taller pyro, Gabriel Dawnton, belonged to... one of them had said that 'they weren't getting paid nearly enough for this', so perhaps it wasn't as much blackmail that had gotten them roped in as big fat paychecks – and if it was the same for the other team, they didn't have as much reason to hate each other.

Next thing he knew, however, the sound of explosions came closer, and he groaned, taking out his Jag and squatting a little awkwardly between his dispenser and his sentry, ready to repair any damage to it.

“Ach, they're goin' too have too glue yoo an' yer toys back together, yeh naeve!”, came the exclamation from the staircase, preceding a round of grenades fired at his sentry – but Eric had been ready for it and he kept repairing his damaged sentry, occasionally turning around to tend to the minor damage to his dispenser as well. But he failed to notice the flickering figure that slowly hoisted himself up onto his dispenser, and when the demoman moved away and Eric got up, ready to go warn his colleagues near the intel room, the last thing he felt was the cold bite of steel in his upper back, and the last things he heard were the soft but unmistakeable static of electricity as a sapper started frying the inner mechanisms of his sentry, accompanied by the soft-spoken words in a heavy accent.

“...Sorry, mon ami, but we 'ave to deespatch of you...”

By the time Eric respawned again, the Administrator just announced that the BLU teams had captured their intelligence – right after the announcement, one of the other engineers respawned right next to him, and the third man, together with the tall blond pyro and one of the spies, respawned only three seconds afterwards.

“...They came by surprise, pardner, from both sides at once... an' then tha' there spah dispatched Dwight 'ere an' it were _lost._ Dante an' mister Laruelle weren't no match fer a spah, a demoman, two pahros an' a heavy-medic team.” It was the tall pyro's cursing and the offended, angry look of the most meek of his two colleagues that got the Teufort engineer to groan.

“Aw _hell_ , this way we ain't gon' be standin' here fer long... We've gotta git ourselves a better plan!”

“Oui...”, the spy said, sighing before adding the obvious: “But 'ow can we prepare for beink _overwhelmed_ by zee ennemi?”

“Oh, I got a few ideas... Well, uh, that's to say, I overheard Dwight an' Grant talkin' and I have a few things to add to their ideas to make 'em sounder...”, the pyro said – when Eric nodded warily, the blond giant continued, and Eric found his eyes widening as he detailed his three-front plan.

“...Yeh're crazy, pardner...”, he said softly, prompting agreeing nods from his two colleagues and an addition from the man from the same team as the pyro.

“Yeah, Gabriel's crazy as they come-”

“ _Hey_ , j'suis _juste à côté d'toi_ , vieillard!”, the pyro said in a mock offended tone, showing he knew what the other man was about to say, which Grant did without showing any signs of having been interrupted.

“-but he's jus' the right kind'a crazy... an' he's right, we kin _provoke_ th'enemy intuh doin' exactly whut we 'spect of 'em, givin' us a clear path fer Gabe an' th'others – Billy, tha' Harvey kid an' yer team's scout Brian, along with Gabe, tha' long-legged sniper'a yers, Cameron, an' maybe John or Boyd or... well, yeh git th'idea... One team keepin' the pressure on them guys, one run-in-run-out team fer retrievin' their intel an' relayin' it back t'us... an' one team'a men fer defense. Ah think Reese 's gon' be more 'n happy tuh patrol here-”

“Or Jarrod.”, Eric remarked, giving Dwight a quick glance to notice the man smiling and shaking his head, showing that he maybe appreciated Jarrod's attention but he thought it more endearing than enticing.

“Donc, on est tout d'accord? ...Everyone on board with the plan?”, he asked, and when the two other engineers and the spy nodded, Eric nodded as well. The taller man maybe sounded crazy, but the plan had all the makings of an excellent strategy and at least he knew that they couldn't trust on their previous strategy anymore, since it had proven ineffective. When he did so, the pyro grinned and turned to the spy. “Ouais, donc, Amaric, cours et dit à tous d'nos équipes qu'on va leur donner une nouvelle rôle dans ce bataille-ci...” The spy nodded and instantly cloaked, running out of the respawn room and down into the main hall of the battlefield, leaving the three engineers to run to their intel room, as Gabriel had detailed, to set up their sentries exactly as he'd mentioned...

 

“Whew, there she stands...”, Dwight said with a relieved sigh, which his sentry answered with three steady beeps as she scanned the surroundings for hostile presence. The three beeps were answered by Eric's completely built out sentry as well, which stood right behind the pillar, diagonally from his own, and Grant's sentry stood right next to the intelligence pickup point – the engineer was still finetuning it but soon it was fully built out as well, and the intelligence room felt _alive_ with beeps and whirs and mechanical rattling. Each sentry was standing right next to a dispenser – only Gabriel had expressly instructed them to place their dispensers with the _next_ sentry gun so that at least two men would be alerted if their machines were under attack. His dispenser stood on the other side of the pillar, hidden from view from any attackers until they stood on the lower part of the room – behind him stood Grant's dispenser, the medigas from it swirling around his head in a light cloud of pink. “Grant, Eric, who's gon' go join tha' there pressurin' team later?”

“Yeah, that'll be me.”, Grant said, tapping his PDA ostensibly. “Gon' put a teleporter entry point right 'ere an' th'exit point goes in th'enemy vent system. Maybe, if'n ah kin manage...”, he said, but then Eric shook his head and spoke up.

“Don't try an' be a hero, Grant, pardner – tha' Dante guy'a yer team, his plan's sound only 'cause it relies on us doin' whut we do best, an' that's defendin'. Him an' Reese are now prob'ly already pushin' the enemy...” Dwight chuckled and leaned against the dispenser he was allowed to use.

“Tha' there Dante feller seems real good at 'is job, Grant, but 's he always cursin' like tha'? ...Ain't his mama taught him cursin's bad?”, he said, prompting a sorrowful sigh from his fellow engineer.

“Dante... _Gabriel_ lost 'is mom in a bad way 'bout twelve years ago... 's a long story, but he blames 'imself, even t'day, an' it's whut started 'is pyromania. Even if'n it _had t'be there_ all along, jus'... jus' hidden underneath the surface...” Now pale-faced and feeling sorry for even having laughed before, Dwight muttered something that hopefully sounded like the apology he'd intended it as, but the shorter engineer shook his head. “Don't yeh feel sorry, y'ain't know. Yeh don't really know Dante so... jus' maybe not mention it 'round him, awrigh'? He's still a li'l touchy 'bout the subject. ...But yeah, he curses like tha' all'a the damn time. B'lieve it or not, he's actually _holdin' it back a li'l_ t'day, dunno why...”

“'Cause Reese told me Dwight doesn't like it.” Gabriel casually walked into the intel room from the side corridor, his flamethrower slung over his back and his Axtinguisher in his left hand, while his flare gun rested securely in his right. “...Dwight, Eric, Grant, mes amis, you all set up? 'Cause everyone on the battlefield's been informed, Amaric an' Pierre told me. BLU side's got real fu- ahem, real tight defenses but that's mainly because we haven't pushed much yet. Ready to see how they hold up?”, he asked with a lopsided grin that had Dwight feel half like the man was going to _enjoy_ upsetting the BLU teams and torching its members and half like he genuinely wanted the defenses to hold up so he could pick up ideas, which in turn prompted him to nod. It was the right kind of attitude, to him, to want to see how the competition did things and then learn from it if it turned out to work and anticipate it if it turned out not to. “...Bien! Reese will be here in one minute together with Pierre, that old sniper from Eric's team-”

“How in th'hell'd yew git _Mac_ tuh come out 'ere an' camp out with us?”, Eric interrupted, and Gabriel snorted.

“Told him he had the choice between being cannon fodder in the push team or comin' out here to keep an eye on you guys – but no, really, j'vais pas faire rougir le pauvre Dwight en envoyant Chris à vous. Chris is a fuckin' _dirtbag_ – oh, uh, sorry, Dwight-”

“Don't matter, Gabriel, pardner, guess ah gotta learn tuh live with it...”, Dwight said, smiling shyly at the tall pyro who smiled back good-naturedly as he continued.

“-so Reese, Pierre, that Mac guy, an' Boyd, Eric's team's demoman. They'll be here-”

“Now, amigo.”, came the offhand interruption from the staircase leading into the intel room – Dwight turned around to see Teresa walk over to him with a broad grin on her features. “Run back to the frontline, Gabriel, amigo, they need ya. Jarrod's just about to blow up in Harvey's face-”

“Whut did Harv' say?”, Dwight said with a slightly exasperated groan, but from the other side of the room Eric reacted similarly though his annoyance was not aimed at the scout at all.

“Whut in Sam-hill 's tha' pahro thinkin'?”

“Oh, it was... well, Jarrod teased Harvey a little about Dwight, and then Harvey understandably exploded and called Jarrod a few names that I really don't want to repeat before telling him in gory and graphic detail where he could shove his Axtinguisher and which end should go first. Last I saw before I left was your team's scout calming Jarrod down, Eric – and don't worry about Harvey, Dwight, Lyndon was talking _him_ down as well.” Both engineers relaxed, and Grant shook his head.

“Sounds like most pahros an' scouts got volatile tempers. Billy's jus' the same – anyone insultin' him, or Gabriel, or Arch' from BLU... huh, _'specially_ if'n they insult Archie from BLU... Gabriel's got a short fuse 's well-”

“Oui, donc me taquines pas, vieux...”, Gabriel said a little curtly before turning to Dwight and Eric. “...If ya need a li'l more backup, just come get us, awright? Two engies can hold this place with ease. And just in case a lone spy or solly manages to make it in here and decimate every-fuckin'-one, we're changing guard teams every hour. ...Alors, à bientôt, mes amis ingénieurs!”, he said, waving at Grant and even managing a wink at Dwight that got the engineer shaking his head, wondering what the man was trying to achieve by it. However, instead of thinking about the tall blond pyro and whatever his intentions were, he focused on the people that had come along with Reese to the intel room to keep their defenses solid. The spy stood next to Grant, discussing something or other regarding the pyro that had just left – Gabriel's name was audible a few times – while the sniper and the demoman stood near Eric, the dark-skinned one-eyed man holding a bottle of 'scrumpy' just like Duncan would drink and the tall, slender sniper drawing up his nose at that. Then, however, the man walked over to him and offered him his hand.

“Paul MacMurray. Oi jus' now heard a little bit about you, Dwoight, from Lyndon. Enlightenin', oi must say... are you really hackin' into your team's respawn?” Then, when Dwight nodded, the man asked in a hushed tone: “'s it really true the company killed your parents, mate?”

“...Yeah. So if'n yeh think the comp'ny's treatin' y'all bad, 'least yer still alive an' fightin', pardner. ...Heard a few words 'bout yew, too, from yer pahro-”

“'s Jarrod been talkin' to yeh?”, Paul asked nonplussed, looking Dwight over and shaking his head with a soft sigh. “...Whot about, mate?”

“'Bout yer previous spah, mainly. How losin' him were bad on 'im, he liked the man... Antonio, righ'?”, he asked, and Paul sighed, nodding.

“Weren't just the flamer that had it hard when Tony doyd... Thing is, doyin' isn't really an exception on our team an' the BLU team we foight...”

“Ah know, ah, uh...” Dwight blushed profusely, looking at the others before speaking in a soft and urgent whisper: “...Y'see, there's this... lady... tha' visits me sometimes... when she's got th'time. It ain't allowed, a-an' we don't always _talk_ when she visits, if'n y'undehstand-”

“Oi do – mum's the word, mate.”, Paul said, shaking his head. Dwight gently nudged his hardhat in recognition before speaking in the same quiet whisper.

“She's told me 'bout yer team – 'bout whut happened tuh Jarrod, 'bout whut happened tuh tha' spah'a yers... 'bout what her team's _forced_ tuh do tuh yew... 's a real _ugly_ situation yew guys 're in... an' it's even worse fer them ladies-”

“Just outteh curiosity, mate, _which_ lady visits you?”, the sniper asked, and Dwight blushed fiercely as he muttered his answer that was barely audible but which still got the sniper to roll his eyes and nod. “Should 'ave known... We've got an entire _team_ of sheilas runnin' around, mate, yer li'l secret sweetheart's just _one_ of 'em. But she's probably the fiercest one of the bunch. The most clever one, too. She-”

“Ah know.”, Dwight said, looking up and seeing Teresa walk his way again, which caused him to suddenly clear his throat and speak a little more loudly again: “So yeah, losin' tha' there spah must'a been hard on yeh.” He hoped the sniper understood why he'd changed the subject, and he wasn't disappointed: all the man showed for now being privy to his secret was a knowing nod as he answered honestly.

“Yeah, but oi heard Jarrod say yeh got _kidnapped_ by yer enemy team.” Dwight nodded, more so out of gratitude for the man's understanding than to answer, and a second later, Teresa spoke to explain.

“Sí, amigo. The BLU engineer of the team we fight against, together with his team's soldier, they kidnapped Dwight from his room in the middle of the night and held him captive underneath our battlefield. They intended to torture and kill him – and they would have succeeded in doing so if it weren't for Dwight's lover following the soldier and liberating our southern friend before Benjamin could... A-anyway, no lo diga... R-raphael – that's Dwight's lover, the BLU scout-”

“Holy dooley, you're buggerin' a _BLU_?!”, the sniper reacted in utter shock, and Teresa would've raised an eyebrow if they weren't permanently lost, instead speaking up a little coolly.

“Is something _wrong_ with the BLU team?”

“Well... uh, _our_ BLU team's nothing but rotten apples... maybe one or two exceptions, but they're _exceptions_. Oi thought it was like that with _oll_ teams...”

“Well, naw.”, Dwight said, sighing softly before continuing: “Our own BLU team's mostly awrigh', 'cept fer Lance an' Benjamin. An', uh, mind yeh don't tell tha' tuh tha' tall blonde pahro, 'is girl's on BLU 's well.”

“Sí, and mi novia is on BLU also, amigo.”, Teresa said in the same cool tone she'd used when asking the sniper whether something was wrong with the BLU team – when she continued her explanation of what had happened to Dwight, however, her voice became laden with compassion and somewhat justified rage at the two men on the opposite team that _were_ bad. “So, anyway, Raphael managed to get Benjamin to go away again by telling him Eileen, their pyro-”

“An' Reese's girlfriend, so 'fore yeh say again that BLU ain't nuthin' but scoundrels, y'oughta know yeh're pissin' off _two_ pahros, Paul, pardner.”, Dwight added, shaking his head with a gentle smile at the look of utter horror on the sniper's face. Teresa, however, didn't show any signs of having minded.

“...Yes, so Raphael told the soldier that Eileen had come looking for him and that she had been furious that he wasn't there – he ran up to her and had a shouting match with her, after which he decided he was too tired for torture and mayhem on a helpless man anyway and that he'd do so in the morning. ...Raphael replaced the man's mouth wash with rapid-action Drainex-” If the sniper had been pale before, he was almost deathly so now, looking at Teresa as if she'd spoken an incredible profanity regarding his mother, prompting the pyro to nod: “Yes, my thoughts exactly. Well, Benjamin _had_ been talking about _raping_ Dwight, but still... His mouth was damaged beyond repair, lost _all_ of his teeth and his tongue, so he's now mute. Still, Lance does enough talking for the both of them. ...So that's why you'll probably see the hijo de puta coming for us today. Now that he's got a bit of _support_ , he'll try anything he can to make Dwight pay. Because for as far as _he_ knows, Dwight escaped on his own and _forced_ Benjamin to swirl Drainex around in his mouth. It's not like Benjamin can tell him otherwise – and even if he knew it wasn't Dwight, they can't know it's Raphael since he looked just as shocked as everyone else on BLU when Benjamin lost his teeth and his tongue.”

“Oh, he knows...”, Dwight said miserably, shaking his head. “'s why Raphayel asked Gary – 's his own team's sniper, tha' guy's okay 'nough, weren't nuthin' bad in _his_ personnel records – if'n he could sleep in 'is room.” Dwight meant to continue but they suddenly heard running footsteps in the vents overhead and Teresa silently motioned for everyone in the room to take their positions: from the corner of his eye, Dwight saw the demoman switch his sticky-bomb launcher for a hand cannon, and he noticed Grant and Eric both take their wrenches firmly in hand, which prompted him to do likewise. Then, when the running footsteps stopped and nobody dropped down, Teresa groaned and started spraying burning gasoline everywhere, igniting a cloaked figure that had been inching closer to Dwight's position.

“Ah _merde!!_ ” The voice was familiar enough to Dwight, and he shook his head as Teresa took her Axtinguisher and planted it squarely in the spy's back with a somewhat mournful sigh.

“...Of all the spies in all the world, it _had_ to be _Jean-Marie_ that came for you, Dwight, amigo...”, she said, shaking her head and then walking over to Grant again, with whom she'd been talking before coming to check up on him: the other RED engineer already held out a bottle of beer for her, motioning for the charred and slowly disappearing body and speaking softly and sympathetically to her. In the meanwhile, the sniper that Dwight had been speaking to also motioned for the body as he approached, though he only spoke up quietly and when standing right next to him.

“...Yer pyro doesn't like setting foire to spoys?”

“Oh, she likes it well 'nough, it's jus'... J-M's our own BLU team's spah, an' Reese's developed a li'l soft spot fer him. They talk a lot, an' he... ah guess he knows 'bout whut she did back in 'er... _darker_ days... He knows, an' he tells her it's all okay, ah'm guessin'. She ain't intuh men, an' J-M's not tryin' tuh seduce her neither 'cause he's got somethin' goin' with Harvey's mom, but they're good friends an' he jus' genuinely appreciates her. If'n she ain't have tuh kill 'im on tha' there battlefield, she don't. 's also why she likes sittin' at mah machines so much: that way, she kin avoid meetin' him in a situation where th'others notice she ain't killin' him if'n he ain't attackin' no one yet.” The sniper meant to react again but hurried footsteps approached again and Teresa tensed, as did everyone else, and when she deflected a rocket and got an inarticulate cry in response, Dwight gritted his teeth. That had been Benjamin, he was sure of it, which would probably mean that several of the others of his team were there as well...

Suddenly, his own sentry revved up and shot a quick round of bullets at an approaching form, causing a pained yelp and a muted 'huh' to sound from the top of the staircase, which was answered a second later by a sharp gunshot and a clearly audible 'AAAAGH!'. Dashing down the staircase was the youngest of the four snipers, looking thoroughly disgruntled.

“Oi, men, jus' put a bullet in a pyro, what's ya all doin' down 'ere?!”

“Magpie, it's not loike we could stop 'im _up there_!”, the older sniper reacted, and Dwight spoke up soothingly.

“Son, if'n that pahro came runnin' down here, he would'a found 'imself a lot 'f trouble. 'E-” A startled yelp from the top of the staircase drew his attention and he pulled the younger sniper aside, ignoring the youth's protests which admittedly halted the very second his sentry revved up again and shot a full band of ammunition and a rocket into another approaching pyro, splattering him or her across the hallway. The next second, the other sentries in the intel room both followed the example of his own: a spy foolishly uncloaked next to him, ready to backstab him, but Eric's sentry had the man sag in a bullet-riddled mess before he could even raise his knife; and the second a scout and a soldier – _Benjamin_ , Dwight instantly noticed, just as the soldier noticed him – set foot inside the intel room, they were both dispatched by a single sentry rocket from Grant's sentry. All in all, the silence that fell in the intelligence room after the last of the body parts rained down was almost deafening. And then, Grant unceremoniously spoke up.

“...Want a beer, young'in? Yeh did great, shootin' that firs' pahro-”

“Oi'm s'pose'ta go back on offense, old man, but thank ye. Paul, you keep 'em safe-”

“Wouldn't dream of not doing moy job properly, Magpie.” Dwight grinned at the clear affection in the older sniper's tone, carefully waiting for the younger one to run off again, knife in hand to dispatch with anyone foolish enough to come running to the intel room.

“...Yew an' yer colleague?”, he asked, and Paul gave a soft, somewhat surprised huff.

“...Yeah, mate. 's Not loike we keep it a secret, but... well, not everyone's tolerant 'f it-” Suddenly, he was interrupted by the demoman he'd brought with him, who clearly belonged to his team.

“Mac, me boy-yo, Eric wants-” The man's speech was liberally slurred and he had to belch halfway through, fortunately turning his face away from both men as he did so, after which he picked up right where he'd stopped: “-a word with yeh.”

“Ollroight – Dwoight, mate, was noice talkin' to yeh.”, the older sniper said, moving away and leaving Dwight to his own devices again, though Dwight refilled his sentry's ammunition belts with a broad grin. It was clear as day that the snipers from the other RED team were as happy as they could be together, and it made him think of his own happy relationship – of how Raphael and he would get to appreciate a few more moments alone together once the battle was over.

 

“Someone close Dwight's ears for a sec? ...No? Okay then, sorry, mon ami – but _that is how it's fuckin' done!!_ ” When the tall blonde pyro dropped the intelligence case onto the drop point, from where it instantly disappeared as the voice over the speakers stated that they'd captured the enemy intelligence, Eric rolled his eyes as he spoke up loudly, grinning from ear to ear. However, his moment of reveling in the glory of the flawless move was cut abruptly short when the scout that was with him – Dwight's team's scout, judging by the thumbs-up he gave the engineer covertly from behind the taller man's back before – spoke up with a derisive snort.

“Yeah, nevahmind that we basically sent that long-legs snipah in ta get shot ta shit by Lance's mini-sentry-”

“Hey, I fuckin' carried his wounded ass all the way out to the middle room, it ain't my fault Theo sniped him! And what're _you_ talkin' about, you li'l shit, all _you_ did was run away scared the moment ya saw Theo take aim again! If it weren't for John, we'd _all_ be fuckin' toast!”

“John's getting tired of your incessant yappin', Dante.”, the soldier warned, and the pyro groaned but didn't speak anymore, shouldering his flamethrower with the air of a man ready to burn the world to cinders, Eric mused. Considering that Grant, on whose team this Dante served, had made claims about barely-controlled pyromania – among others, because it was no use pretending he didn't know that the man had misbehaved with Jarrod in the past, or that he'd overheard his own team's pyro speaking about the man being drunk more than he was sober – it wasn't a surprise that he had the firestarter air about him. However, when the scout spoke up again, the man showed a completely opposite side of himself.

“...Yeah, well, I s'pose ya were kinda awesome, especially when ya took those otha two pyros on. Don't think I evah saw a pyro turn tail an' flee as quick as that. One'a them was ya girl, right?” Instantly, a rueful smile appeared on the giant man's features, displaying remorse and _pride_ as well as genuine glee.

“Yeah, the one that fought was mon ange de feu – my Sammy. She's got a heart of fire. ...The other one, that turned tail an' ran the fuck off, was Eileen the Irish miracle, think ya know _her_ , don't ya, runty?”

“Hey, watch who ya call 'runty', shit-fa-brains – ya maybe think you're da man with ya ten fuckin' feet but I can still floor ya!”, the scout instantly flared up, only backing down when Dwight hastily abandoned his sentry to put a soothing hand on the scout's shoulder and, because he couldn't manage to reach Dante's shoulder, the pyro's elbow.

“Now, guys, don't yeh go fightin'... focus on what's important right now, awrigh'? ...Who'a yew's stayin' fer defense, an' who's goin' back ta offense?”

“Yeah, uh, I'm goin' back in tha frontlines, Dwight.”, the scout said meekly, seeming sorry for the fact that he left his team's engineer behind. The pyro shrugged.

“Guess I'm stayin', give the enemy teams a li'l breather... plus I've gotta make sure James the asswipe doesn't come back to surprise you. He was a little more tenacious, guess Sammy still hasn't forgiven him. J'trouve ça merveilleux.” For a second, a half-vindictive smile overtook the pyro's features, after which he shook his head softly to shake the bad memories and continued: “John's staying as well, and I think we're getting company in a minute or two. Uh, I don't know those guys' names, but Clint's heavy and medic-”

“D'yeh mean me, son?”, Eric asked, nonplussed, to which the pyro answered with a soft snort.

“Sure, I mean you, ami.”

“How in th'hell did yew think'a _Clint_?”, he queried, utterly dumbfounded – now, it seemed the pyro was feeling a little embarrassed at the use of the nickname, and he reacted somewhat more sharply than he probably intended.

“Well, _fuck_ , I thought you'd know you look a little like Clint fuckin' Eastwood in 'The Good, The Bad and The Ugly', it's a classic and you're old enough to know it-”

“Yew an' me oughta have a li'l talk later 'bout how yeh jus' called me old, son, but jus' outteh curiosity, which am ah?”

“You? The Bad. Sorry, Grant, mon ami, but you're definitely The Ugly – Dwight's the youngest and the least fuckin' grumpy of you so he gets to be The Good.” The youngest of his two colleagues looked appropriately mollified, Eric noticed, but the man's own engineer scowled and shook his head. However, when he spoke, he smiled again.

“Glad yeh c'nsider me ugly, son, lord knows ah ain't tryin' tuh look good fer yew.”

“Hell, Grant, you should have a little more pride in your appearance, especially if ya hope to seduce that ex of yours entre tes draps de nouveau-”, the pyro said, ducking a sudden mean swing from his own engineer's wrench and chuckling softly: “Quoi, c'était une secret ou quoi?! Everyone on the team an' on our BLU team knows you and your Carol fucked over the Christmas holidays-” Again, he had to dodge a swing, but this time it was a lot better aimed, and Dwight looked like he considered taking away the other man's wrench. “Aww, t'es fâché maintenant, mon ami? For me bein' happy that you and your ex got a good lay again, finally? I'm still hopin' you and her patch things up, mon vieux... not for my sake, but for your little Lynn's sake. And besides, ya _know_ Sammy agrees with me, so the two of you had better fuckin' _patch things up..._ ” Finally, the other engineer relented his assault and just sighed warily: just in time, because Egor and Deryk walked into the intelligence room, looking around and nodding appreciatively. If the two men had noticed anything of the exchange between the tall pyro and his team's engineer, they showed nothing save perhaps a few questioning glances in the two men's directions.

“Zhis is a very good setup, meine Herren!” Deryk sounded just as appreciative as he looked, and his Russian comrade's grin was telltale of how well the other man thought their defensive setup to be. However, the next words Deryk spoke had Eric groaning softly. “Ve just shot herr Henderson vhen ve came here-” Eric meant to react and ask the medic whether he'd looked like he was scouting out their defenses or whether it'd been a genuine attempt for their intel, but he found himself interrupted by the giant blonde pyro.

“ _Good_ , hope the fuckin' asshole _suffered_ while ya punched holes in him with that minigun.”, Gabriel Dantan reacted, frowning and looking like he meant every last droplet of spite that he flung into the words.

“Yew must'a really not liked 'im tryin' tuh make a move on yer girl, son-”

“Pfeh, that, an' Jarrod just now told me what he did in revenge for that. Fuckin' asshole _deserves_ to be _pulled off the goddamn respawn_ -”

“Hey, ain't _no one_ d'serves tuh be pulled off'a respawn!”, Dwight instantly flared up, looking pale. “Not even someone 'at's an asshole, like that Henderson feller... or like Lance...” Eric grew quiet again, looking the youngest of his two colleagues over. Dwight had the air of someone that should be sitting behind a computer at a desk job, his hands barely calloused just like his soul – but then he caught himself thinking that that fact was a breath of fresh air, that maybe not _every_ mercenary should have callouses on their soul. One of the reasons why he appreciated Cameron as much as he did was because the kid wasn't jaded yet like many of the others; and it was clear that many of the others in the intelligence room shared his opinion, because the tall blond pyro cast a mild look at the youngest engineer, grinning when Dwight blushed slightly and tweaked his sentry yet again. “...Okay, y'all should be headin' back tuh the frontlines now, mister Dante, figure th'enemy's gonna be missin' yew somethin' fierce.”, Eric said, a sentiment which was answered from the least likely of candidated that suddenly walked through the door, dragging a charred body along, an unblemished hand still tightly clenched around his ankle.

“Yeah, Gabriel, amigo, head on back and toast those cabróns like they're on the menu tonight. Make James _well done_ and _extra crispy_ for me, amigo. ...Don't worry, I'll keep the amigos here safe, Teresa took over from me in the push team.” Jarrod waltzed over to Dwight, leaning against Grant's dispenser and plucking the charred arm off his leg. “Mierda, this little pendejo was _tenacious_ -”

“Yeah, Raph sure is.”, Dwight admitted with a soft sigh, taking the charred hand and placing it on top of the dispenser from where it slowly disappeared. To Eric's surprise and slightest dismay, his team's pyro gave his fellow engineer a sympathetic and slightly appraising look.

“That was tu novio, Dwight, amigo? …Hell, if he's as tenacious with you as he is en el pele-”

“Jarrod, yew _mind_ not _flirtin'_ with the man?”, Eric snapped, and the pyro glared at him, nonverbally telling him to back the hell off; but Dwight slowly raised his hands and answered the pyro as if no interruption had been spoken.

“Yeah, that were Raph's hand, ah could recognize it anywhere – an' yew better b'lieve he's jus' as tenacious, Jarrod, an' _jealous_ tuh boot, which is prob'ly why _yew_ got a back full 'f scattergun pellets an' why that other pahro limped in 'bout an hour ago. Yew two ain't real subtle, are yeh?” Jarrod snorted, Eric noticed, but then he shrugged and shook his head.

“Aw, bueno, sí, I'd stop if I believed he'd stop shooting me to shreds whenever he sees me out there – and I might as well flirt with ya like there's no tomorrow, amigo, if I'm getting raped from behind with a scattergun anyway, at least then I have _some_ fun-”

“Jarrod, ain't no one havin' _fun_ right now, 'cept maybe tha' there other pahro, he looks a li'l too trigger-happy if'n y'ask me...”, Eric amended, noting the heavy sigh his other colleague, Grant, gave.

“Gabe's... feelin' a li'l less-than-happy at the moment, 'is girlfriend's out there fightin' against him. A li'l like Dwight.”

“Yeah, well, that's kind 'f why ah don't even react tuh _his_ flirtin', he oughta know better, we're _both_ spoken for.”, Dwight said – instantly, Eric noticed, Jarrod perked up and leaned on top of the dispenser, speaking something to Dwight that had the engineer blush and answer in a muted whisper.

“...'e ees attracted to Jarrod, c'est clair...”, came a disembodied voice from behind Eric: when he cursed and turned around, ready to strike with his Jag, he found pinkish smoke swirl from behind him and his strike faltered. Seeing that, the spy grinned and nudged his head at Dwight and Jarrod, who were now busy discussing something more serious. “...Zey seem to get along très bien. A leetle _too_ bien, even. Raphael may 'ave 'ad zee reasons for shootink zee back of your team's pyro full of zee 'ail. ...Mes amis!”, the spy said loudly, causing Jarrod and Dwight to turn to him, the former looking thoroughly disgruntled at the interruption and the latter frowning as well until he noticed the spy and smiled broadly.

“Amareek! How's things goin' out there fer us?”

“Zey are goink très bon, dat ees why I came 'ere, Dwight, mon cher ami. Zee team of Teresa et quelques autres 'as captured zee intelligence again, zee BLUs were _decimated_ from all sides. 'Ans et Youri provided zee deestraction-”

“Ah feel sorry fer th'enemy, somehow. 'Tween a crazy mother-hubbard 'f a medic an' a heavy tha' eats BLUs fer breakfast, it's a purdy damn _impossible_ situation... Seen Lance?”, he asked delicately, and Amaric whistled innocently as he wiggled his sapper.

“'E _'ad_ zee level zree dispenser. Teresa keeled 'im just as 'e was tryink to find me. 'Is mini-sentry was no match for 'er firepower. 'E was cursink all zee way down from 'is team's respawn room-” Then, however, a rocket flew into the intelligence room and exploded against the far wall without doing any damage, causing Jarrod to curse and pull his mask over his face again. Eric instantly readied his Jag again, ready to keep his sentry in prime condition – however, he noticed a glimmer from the corner of his eye and spun around, hitting a BLU spy squarely on the back of his head.

“Gawd-damn, it's Bernard – Dwight, Grant, check yer equipment an' keep an eye open fer spahs! Bernard ain't never alone!”

“Ain't no need tuh panic, they don't got no chance 'gainst us!”, Dwight said, drawing his pistol and shooting seemingly into thin air, a dead spy dropping to his knees a second later on the staircase he'd been monitoring, which Eric knew to be Conner, the _other_ spy his team regularly confronted. Grant swung his wrench right into a third invisible form, who bled and cursed almost inaudibly, at which point Jarrod's flamethrower added further agony to the man by lighting him on fire almost casually. Judging by the way Grant shook his head, that had to be the BLU spy _he_ regularly confronted. In the meantime, the actual attack group showed up as well: the other team had spared two pyros – Eric groaned when he saw the very familiar and equally specific tarnishes on the uniform of one of them, meaning it was James, causing him to instantly switch to his Wrangler and get behind his sentry. Jarrod noticed it, too, because he instantly made a beeline for his nemesis, but the rest of the group sidetracked him.

“Jarrod, pardner, don't yeh go runnin' out!!” Blinking, Eric cast a surprised glance at Dwight, who had been the one to speak up – his utter bemusement was compounded when the youngest of his colleagues added a shout intended for the _enemy_ : “If'n yeh wanna git this 'ere intel, yeh'll have tuh come up with somethin' _real_ good!”

“Oh, ya bettah believe we are gettin' that intel, suckah!”, a scout replied, though he didn't show his face just yet. Eric rolled his eyes. It was the BLU scout his own team battled regularly, a little nervous guy called Ben: clearly he was avid to be included in the plan, and the prospect of having a key role in it made the possibility of being shot to shreds by sentry-fire seem distant to the boy. His voice sounded closest to the right-side entrance so he trained his laserscope dot on the very edge of the wall, hoping it wouldn’t betray that he was manually aiming his machinery again.  Ben, in the meantime, spoke up again: “Now why don't ya come ovah here instead'a hidin' behind ya machines?”

“Pfeh, yeah, like ah'm gon' do tha'. Jus' like yew won't come over here. 's Only one thing that makes us diff'rent, son.”, Dwight said with a smile, though his eyes clearly told the rest of them to be ready for the enemy group to advance, which made Eric realize he was going to call out the scout. The youth obliviously took the bait.

“Oh yeah? Just one thing, huh, ya egghead?”

“Yeah, jus' one thing. Y'see, _ah_ 've _always_ 'hidden' behind mah machines, but _yew_ ain't always hidden behind a wall an' five team mates, ya _li'l yellah jackrabbit_ -” Eric didn't know many of his enemy team's berserk buttons, especially not since he usually kept on defense, but he learnt one that instant, as the BLU scout leapt out from behind his cover, his angry retort dying on his lips when Eric’s laserscope dot unfailingly found his heart and rapidly emptied half a band of ammunition into the slight body of the young man. The others that were with him – a soldier, the two pyros and a demoman – didn't follow, but after a few seconds of tense waiting, a loud battlecry came from the hallway.

“ _Henderson, espèce de connard sale, come the fuck here, I dare ya, fils de garce châtré!!_ ” The accent, the multiple swears, and the fact that none of the spies would speak just as loud and colorful as that made it all too clear who it was, and Eric perked up again when he heard a veritable _stampede_ of approaching footsteps, which were answered by muted groans and curses from the BLUs laying in wait outside the intelligence room. The enemy team had maneuvered themselves into a very difficult position indeed, literally caught between a rock and a hard place. They'd have no choice but to attack either group and expose themselves to the other group. James made his own choice, separate from the group: he dashed inside in hopes of finding Jarrod close at hand, clearly, but Dwight's sentry rattled quickly the moment he showed his face on the left-hand side and pumped the British pyro full of hot lead, finishing it off with a sentry rocket to the man's face. The others wisely chose to brave the assaulting group instead of the three-sentry engineer's nest – wisely, but not successfully, because all too soon their dying cries filled the hallways, ten seconds before Teresa walked in, half-carrying a barely conscious duplicate version of Jarrod which turned out, as the man sagged against the dispenser next to Dwight, near the _real_ Jarrod, to be Grant's team's spy, his weathered face pale and a thin trickle of blood issuing from his nose.

“I feegured zey would not try to fight me eef I was deesguised as zee pyro, mais j'avais tort... m'sieur James 'Enderson m'a poursuit jusqu'à mon rencontre avec Gabriel et cette dame douce. M-merci, ma chère-”

“Ah, de nada, amigo. Couldn't leave you to bleed out.”, the pyro admitted with a gentle blush, which prompted the spy to speak softly to the others.

“Terèse 'ad to carry me all zee way over 'ere, wheech she deed, j'pense, not knowink I was not really Jarrod-”

“Ah, Reese, hermosa, love ya too-”, Jarrod said, and the eyebrowless female pyro snorted softly though she didn't speak up, and Eric was surprised to see his own team's pyro not make light of his words, instead even _nodding firmly_ to _strengthen_ his sentiment. “Okay... Gabriel went back to his team now?”, he asked her, and she turned serious again as well.

“Yeah, he saw James run into the corridor and he instantly came along with me. Didn't stop swearing until he saw the predicament James and his little tag team were in, then he became _vicious_ and bloodthirsty. He's one kill away from a domination – he's _planning_ it. When James ran in here instead of towards him, he turned back, probably to sniff him out again with the push team.” Dwight looked pale, Eric noticed, and with very good reason.

“Ain't he got nuthin' better tuh do than chase James 'round tha' there battlefield?”, he asked, and Grant sighed.

“Yew clearly don't know Gabriel Dawntahn yet – he's gawd-damn stubborn if'n he feels like he or anyone he likes 's been wronged. Whut tha' there BLU pahro tried with Sam 's bad enough, but when he heard whut happened tuh Red an' Spicey over there-”

“Oye, pendejo, call me 'Red and Spicey' again and I'm shovin' that wrench up your culo so far you'll taste su mierda y su sangre for _weeks_.”, Jarrod said, though he didn't sound or look anywhere near as angry as his threat betrayed – the reason for which, Eric mused, was probably the brilliant, soothing smile the latina pyro was giving him and the way she'd put her hand on his arm to calm him. Remembering what her team's spy had said about her earlier, he smiled a little wryly and shook his head. From the other side of the room, Grant continued.

“...When he heard whut happened tuh _Jarrod_ , he said he was gonna kill tha' there unfortunate BLU pahro fer it again an' again.” Eric still remembered the pyro's exact words, having heard them as well, and he was grateful for the way Grant didn't add the slur he'd spoken. Teresa sighed and shook her head in turn.

“Well, what happened to Jarrod was vicious, sí, and I can totally understand Gabriel. I'd go after James Henderson myself if my part in this battle allowed it-”

“Oh, Teresa, mi hermosa, you don't have to go after him. Ya already did enough just by talkin' to me.”, Jarrod said, grinning at her and gaining a warm smile in return before one of the group she'd entered with, the scout from Gabriel's team, cleared his throat and spoke up.

“Yo, man, we should get goin', Dante's gonna be waiting for us ta make anotha push – there's plenty of time for flirtin' once we've won, awright?” Teresa blushed and instantly pulled her gas mask on again, but Eric was surprised to see Jarrod grin softly as his fellow pyro ran off outside again, leading the group back into the fray. Clearly whatever feelings Teresa had for her fellow pyro, platonic as they were, weren't one-sided in the least.

“...Eric, pardner?” Grant's voice startled him from his thoughts, and he looked at his fellow engineer to see the man hold out a cold beer for him. “Yew look like yeh could use one.”, the man offered, his voice betraying how he'd also noticed the exchange between the two pyros, and Eric nodded.

“Yeah, figure ah could...”, he admitted, walking over to the other man's dispenser, leaning against it slightly and taking a sip from his beer while Grant took two additional cold beers from the toolbox he'd put on a small metal ledge near where he'd set up his sentry.

“Jarrod, Dwight, yew want some too?”

“Ah, sí – ya don't need to ask, amigo, a cold beer is always muy apreciado!”, the pyro reacted, while Dwight merely walked over to accept the chilled bottle. “...So we wait again?”, Jarrod asked, and Eric shrugged, answering in the stead of his two colleagues.

“Yeah, son, so we wait again...”

 

“Wooooo!” Grant had to agree with Billy's excited exclamation as the scout dropped the intel briefcase onto the drop point. It was hard _not_ to agree with it, since their teams now required only one more capture to win the battle and the day. However, at the back of his mind, the soft and painfully _reasonable_ voice of pessimism spoke words to pull his soaring spirits firmly down to earth again, words that were echoed by his colleague, Eric, from the team of Jarrod who had switched positions with Gabriel.

“Don't yeh go cheerin' yet, son, we ain't won yet. Tha' there last capture 's gon' be the hardest, th'enemy's gonna do all they can tuh keep us from winnin'. Plus 's almost been twelve hours since we started this 'ere battle, we're all tired as hell.” As if to emphasize his point, one of the two demomen that had accompanied the group – either Eric's team's demolition expert Boyd or Dwight's team's demoman Duncan – yawned loudly, which Eric clearly took as proof of his previous point. However, Dwight, their third engineer, spoke softly.

“...Maybe we oughta think 'f a few ways tuh keep the fellahs on their toes? Ah mean, keep our guys awake an' all. We can't afford tuh have anyone fall asleep on us, not over here an' not over there. If'n th'attackin' team falls asleep on their mission, they could walk intuh a trap with open eyes; if'n any'a _us_ falls asleep, th'enemy kin jus' walk on in.”

“Yeah, we can't have tha'...”, Grant agreed readily, turning to Dwight. “...Ah kin think'a some things tuh keep our guys awake – coffee, mainly, an' maybe allow 'em some sleep in groups'a three in our respawn room, so one guy per team gits an hour'a sleep – but as tuh how to manage it? Got no clue, son. Yew do?”

“Well, ah kin rig one'a our dispensers so we kin plug in a coffee machine... an' if'n we find a scout that kin borrow me 'is can of 'Bonk!'...”, Dwight admitted, to which Grant meant to react and say that his plan sounded okay, but Eric seemed to be dead set to be their pessimist of the hour.

“But we ain't got no coffee machine, son, an' we don't got _coffee_ for it even if'n we had th'machine. An' ah figure coffee kin only take us so far... Don't git me wrong, ah sure agree with'cher ideas, but we've gotta keep it feasible... Naw, 's gon' be far better if'n we play th'enemy's tiredness against 'em.” Gritting his teeth, Grant stated the obvious flaw in that plan.

“Yeah, but how's we gonna keep the pressure on th'enemy if'n we're fallin' asleep ourselves, pardner?” The shrewder of the three of them didn't have an immediate response to that remark, though he looked like he would argue the point as vehemently as he could manage, something that Grant anticipated with his next words: “We've gotta think 'f how tuh keep _our own men_ awake first, an' _then_ think 'f pressurin' them BLUs.” That seemed to stymie his fellow engineer's protests for the moment – but only for a short moment, because Eric shook his head softly and retorted.

“Yeah, well, we've jus' gotta hope tha' they's more tired 'n we are, 'cause ah'm plum outta ideas tuh keep our guys awake-”

“Fellers, fellers, don't argue!”, Dwight said softly in between, but Grant kept his attention focused on the other engineer, who was now standing by his sentry with his hands on his hips, his Jag hanging off a loop on his belt.

“Yeah, well, y'ain't thinkin' along-”

“Ah _am_ thinkin' along!”, Eric defended himself – Grant meant to reply sarcastically and somewhat spitefully, but he wasn't the first to speak up.

“ _Fellers!!_ ” Both he and Eric turned to Dwight, who had been the one to shout at them: the youngest engineer looked pale and thoroughly startled by his own exclamation. Blushing, the man continued in a more subdued tone: “...Ah think we gotta change our strategy a li'l. Our push team ain't gotta push as hard no more, jus' keep tabs on them BLUs an' be ready tuh respond t'any move they try an' make. If'n they's tired, we've still got our capture team fer attackin' an' our defense team fer defendin'. The capture team kin git coffee – an' like ah said, if'n one'a our three scouts can spare a can 'f 'Bonk!', ah kin _hypercaffeinate_ tha' there coffee, mah dispenser's rigged fer it anyway, ain't the firs' time ah had tuh battle all night.” Grant gave a soft and surprised exhale, and he nodded; Eric looked just as pleasantly surprised as he felt, but the man didn't give Dwight his approval just yet.

“An' whut 'bout the defendin' team? 'Cause in case yew ain't noticed yet, them men 're fallin' asleep where they stand, or jus' about.” Grant half expected Dwight to back down again, but as he took a step forward, a positively _calculating_ glint in his eyes that suited his youthful features ill, the words of Teresa, Dwight's own team's pyro, came back to mind and the auburn-haired engineer grinned appreciatively.

“Oh, but our team's gon' be havin' a li'l party...” As Dwight outlined the idea, Eric's eyebrows seemed to make a run for it, rising so high they almost moved up to the top of his head; but Grant felt like the idea had its merits. For one, the music Dwight suggested on would be audible enough to draw the enemy in, whether they'd be lulled into a false sense of security by the absence of the sentry beeps or because they were sleep-deprived and curiosity won out from carefulness; also, the scent of beer and coffee would appeal to those mercenaries on BLU that were hungry or thirsty. And thirdly, he mused when the other men – the two demomen, Gabriel, the heavy and medic pair of Eric's team and John – perked up considerably, perhaps the greatest merit of the idea was that it was a plan that suited their teams. Eric seemed to realize it as well, because he turned to his teammates.

“Boyd, Deryk, Egor, what do y'all think? A li'l Texas-style party?”

“Yeah!”, the Scotsman bellowed, ostensibly raising his bottle of scrumpy in salute of the idea while his teammates agreed.

“Ach, ja, zhat ist az good an idea as zhe next...”, the medic, Deryk, said meekly, though he certainly seemed to agree with his Russian comrade's louder and more enthusiastic addition.

“Da, ve have party!”

“An' them BLUs ain't invited.”, Eric finally agreed, causing Grant to subconsciously relax and Dwight to visibly do so as well.

“Awrighty... so the plan is fer us tuh gather righ' here, in th'middle. Nice an' visible fer th'enemy. If'n they send in a sniper, all they're gon' do is scatter us back tuh our dispensers. Doc, yew keep healin' yer buddy, make sure that yeh kin charge 'im if'n we need it-”

“Knowin' our BLUs, we're gon' need it.”, Eric reacted, and Dwight sighed.

“Well, we ain't seen Lance yet, so ah figure he's gon' come lookin' fer trouble, which makes the same sentiment count fer me – an' ah'm sure them BLUs Grant an' his team fight ev'ry day ain't gon' fall asleep none, either, so we're definitely gon' need it, yeah. ...Awright, son-”

“Billy.”, the scout offered, grinning at the engineer as he understood what the man meant to ask before he voice the words. “An' I'm goin' for that coffee machine! I think I got a can'a Bonk in my satchel too, somewhere – I don't drink that crap, but Arch' does. Be back in a sec!”, he said, dashing off upstairs only to return with a slightly fuming Jarrod. “Dante, dude, run ya ass to tha battlefield an' Axtinguish that BLU pyro ya like chasin' so much – all this suckah's been able ta say when he respawned was 'James' in between curses in freakin' _Spanish_.”

“Il t'a tué d'nouveau, Jarrod, mon ami?”, Gabriel asked; when the Spanish-speaking pyro nodded, Gabriel turned eerily grim, Grant mused, leaving off his gas mask and slinging his flamethrower over his shoulder again in favor of wielding his Axtinguisher in his left hand and his Detonator in his right hand, a sure sign that bloody, brutal death and destruction would follow in his wake. “J'vais pas cesser à lui poursuivre jusqu'au moment qu'il se salit. He's goin' down kicking, screamin', and _beggin' for his fuckin' miserable life_ , j'le jure. And everyone that stands in my way is _dead_ too.”, he added before walking outside, casually shooting a flare at an approaching scout and exploding it right in front of him before swinging his Axtinguisher into the burning form and cutting it in half. Dwight blinked and turned to the group again, pale.

“A-awright, then, uh... let's git this 'ere coffee machine rigged up an' my dispenser workin' on that 'Bonk!'...”, he said, taking both items off Billy's hands. Grant watched his younger colleague grow absorbed in picking apart the kitchen appliance's plug and then wiring it up to his dispenser, where it instantly started percolating fragrant, dark liquid. Grant's mouth watered at the scent of the coffee, especially since they hadn't had any food for hours now, ever since their breakfast at nine. However, Dwight didn't even blink, instead focusing on pushing a few buttons on his dispenser, causing the thing to whir and bleep and a shelf to open on the side of it, where the engineer poured in the contents of the can of energy drink. However, he suddenly blinked.

“H-hey, uh, this ain't 'Bonk!'... Billy, d'yew use a diff'rent brand?”

“Aw crap, it ain't 'Bonk!'? Then what tha hell...” The scout took the empty can from Dwight's hands and his next words were spoken with a broad and somewhat cruel grin that Grant had no trouble understanding. “Oh man, this is gonna be golden! It's a can'a Sam's energy drink – 's called 'JumpStart' and Sammy always says it's like battery acid mixed with ground coffee beans an' chili pepper. Ya gonna get some _hard_ coffee with that shit! It's ten times stronger 'n 'Bonk!'. Sam drank a can'a that once an' she cleaned up half'a tha base to burn off tha excess energy. And she was _still_ great in battle tha next day!” Dwight nodded, smiling broadly, and pushed an additional button on his dispenser, causing it to shudder and the sound of trickling liquids to issue from within. After ten minutes, a first jug of coffee was finished, and Dwight added just a trickle of a clear liquid from a cup to it – Grant guessed that had to be the processed JumpStart – before pouring some in a small cup and taking a tentative sip, wincing hard.

“How-lee mother'a mercy, that JumpStart sh- ah mean, tha' there JumpStart 's _twenty_ times worse 'n Bonk... this oughta keep our fellers on th'battlefield on their toes... Billy, yeh're fast an' nimble... yew mind runnin' over tuh th'battlefield an' givin' out some'a this coffee tuh the rest'a the fellers?”

“Sure thing!”, the scout said, eagerly putting the thermos that Dwight filled into his satchel, along with a few plastic cups. “See ya, engies!”, he said in greeting before dashing off outside, leaving the engineers and the others behind again, at which point Dwight instantly started making a second jug of coffee, the scent of which was still mouth-wateringly good to Grant. This second jug got a treatment of the clear liquid as well, but this time Dwight poured a decent measure of it in the cup he'd used before, downing it in one and shivering.

“Awright, we're all gittin' some'f this 'ere coffee, an' th'rest's fer the guys an' girls that're pushin' the BLUs. This ought tuh keep us awake fer a couple'a hours, an' after that we kin have ourselves some shut-eye in groups'a three.” Grant accepted the cup from Dwight and drank down the coffee slowly: at first, the taste of the drink itself was prominent, but then a tingling, slightly sweet taste assailed his tastebuds and he felt like a wave of fire coursed through his weary body.

“Holy _sheeyit_ , this 'ere coffee 's strong 'nough tuh burn holes in yer stomach!” Eric, who by then had held out a small cup of his own that got filled with the coffee, nodded and downed the drink quickly, and the others showed varying degrees of dislike with the strength of the coffee as well. But, after a minute, Grant had to admit that the hypercaffeinated coffee did the trick: he felt wide awake and filled to the brim with new energy. Next to Dwight, Jarrod laughed loudly and nudged the people next to him, which were Dwight himself and his own team's demoman Boyd, speaking softly but appreciatively.

“Ay, that coffee me dio una nueva energía para trabajar. BLU better watch out, estoy bien despierto y mirando de matar algunos idiotas tontas en el campo de batalla!”

“Jarrod, pardner, them BLUs ain't gon' make it easy on yeh-”, Eric said from next to Grant, but Dwight spoke up with a somewhat challenging look at the entrances to the intelligence room.

“-jus' like we ain't gon' make it easy on them.” He filled the cup with the last of the coffee and placed it on top of the dispenser next to his sentry – why he'd do that was a mystery, since he'd just told them they'd stand in the middle of the room, but Grant mused that maybe he liked to keep some coffee, even if it'd turn cold. “...Awright, ev'rybody ready fer a li'l party?”, Dwight then asked, and when no objections came, he pressed a few buttons on his dispenser and music started playing around them. The men started chuckling collectively as it turned out to be typical country music, causing Dwight to blush. “...Yeah, ah happen tuh like the music ah grew up with, ain't nuthin' wrong with tha'...”

“Sure 's hell ain't nuthin' wrong with that, Dwight, son.”, Grant said sternly, glaring at the laughing men and then giving a look of sympathy to his younger colleague. “They ain't know good music even if'n it stares 'em straight in the face.”

“Oye, hardhat, I resent that!”, Jarrod said annoyedly, though he still grinned and then patted Dwight on the shoulder. “Amigo, I didn't mean to disrespect tu música preferida – it's just... stereotypical-”

“Pfeh, lad, yoor music choice beats most of our blahdy team's. Gordon, tha' fookin' halfwit, likes _polka_ ; and Ahmaric's music puts yoo t'sleep like a baebe!”, Dwight's teammate said, burping softly and then deciding to wash down his coffee with another sip of his own scrumpy. It got the youngest engineer to smile softly and lean against the dispenser, tapping his foot in time with the rhythm of the music.

“Ahh, this brings back some real fine memories... Mah ma an' pa, God bless 'em, they liked takin' me to them li'l parties in town even when ah were a li'l cowpoke. All the girls wanted tuh dance with me, young an' old. Said ah were 'charmin'' an' 'a real southern gentleman'. Didn't help that mah ma liked tuh dress me like a miniature version of mah pa, said it brought out the color'a mah eyes.”

“Era normalito, no sé, creo que rojo te se adapta muy bien también.”, Jarrod said – Grant gave the pyro an incredulous look but it seemed he meant it genuinely and not as some kind of badly veiled flirtatious comment aimed at the youngest of their group, and Dwight clearly accepted it as such, smiling and nudging his hardhat at the south-american pyro.

“Why, thank yeh kindly, Jarrod, pardner. ...Ah'm sure Grant an' Eric been tuh plenty'a parties 'emselves.”

“Sure, but not like yew, Dwight, pardner. We ain't partied like yew did, with country music an' cowboys.”, Grant said, shaking his head. “Ah'm not from some li'l town in Texas, 'm from Suhvannah, Georgia.”

“Yoo are?”, the demoman from Eric's team asked, and Grant nodded.

“Yeah. Ah know, ninety percent'a all engineers, in RED _and_ in BLU, are Texas-born an' bred, like Eric an' Dwight 'ere, but it ain't a requirement. Ah know 'f a couple'a engineers that ain't from Texas, jus' like me, though.” Grinning, he added in a soft, reverent voice: “...Like mah Carol, fer example. She applied fer a job as a field engineer too, but female engineers weren't a thing back then yet an' she settled fer a job in R an' D.”

“Yoor wee wife, me boy-yo?”, Boyd asked again, and Grant rolled his eyes.

“Mah _ex-_ wife, son. We were t'gether fer well-on twenty years, married fer fifteen'a them... but she had me choose 'tween mah job an' her.”

“Heck, that ain't right.”, Eric said, shaking his head though he did so with a somewhat rueful grin, which was explained by his next words: “...But if'n _ah_ had me a sweet li'l number tuh call mah own, ah would ditch this 'ere job in the blink'f an eye. We weren't recruited fer this job 's much as we were blackmailed intuh it.”

“Yeah, same goes fer me an' mah team. We were framed, each an' every single one'a us. Well, 'cept maybe Hans, he were _mean_. Comp'ny didn't have tuh look fer long t'find some dirt they could use on him. ...Anyway, ah wish we could leave this 'ere job behind us. 's Horrible tuh have tuh be apart from the man ah love jus' 'cause we's on opposite teams.”

“I think mi amigos Gabriel, Sam, Teresa y Eileen all agree with you there.”, Jarrod said before grinning and offering his hand to Dwight. “Hey, since we're all stuck here anyway, do you wanna teach me how to _dance_ to this _música horrible?_ ” Grant snorted when Dwight shrugged and grabbed Jarrod’s arm, hooking it with his own and dancing around with him. Then, when the heavy and medic started clapping along to the music, he snorted.

“Awh _hell_ , sons...”

“Ain't no spahs in 'ere yet...”, Dwight said softly, barely audible to the rest of the group over the music, chuckling a little more loudly before adding in an equally hushed voice: “Dancin' around with Jarrod makes 'em think ah'm distracted, but ah ain't. ...Okay, Jarrod, pardner, time fer someone else t'have a go, yew kin go an' get us some snacks – _an' check fer spahs 'round here..._ ”, Dwight whispered – Grant heard him, and he also didn't fail to notice Jarrod's nod as he walked back to the dispenser, picking up his flamethrower and casually walking around and dousing the room in burning gasoline before walking up the stairs to the respawn room, where their supply closet stood. Grant thought his chances of finding anything to eat were minimal, but then he remembered what the mousy woman with the clipboard had said at the beginning of the day and he grinned. They'd captured the intel four times already, and that would at least warrant them some snacks. Indeed, Jarrod returned the next moment with a platter stacked high with fragrant deep-fried treats.

“Amigos, look what I found waiting for us up there! All kinds of little nibbles! We've got chicken wings, hot dogs-”

“Baloney?”, the heavy asked, causing the medic beside him to snort and shake his head.

“Nein, Kam'rad... vhy vould you vant baloney?” Impatiently, Jarrod put the platter down right on top of Dwight's dispenser, taking a chicken wing in both gloved hands and biting off a generous measure of meat. “Mmm, spicy.”

“Oh, really? Guess that means ah'm tryin' one too.”, Dwight said, grinning broadly and taking up one of the drumsticks, moving it to his mouth but then suddenly speaking as he pretended to look the tasty food over. “Guys, we got comp'ny, 's a spah standin' at mah sentry-”

“On it.”, Grant said, taking three strides over to the sentry and swinging his Southern Hospitality down at the blurry figure, who instantly uncloaked as he clutched his bleeding shoulder, revealing an older spy with an unmasked face. “Now lookie here, whut d'we got ourselves now?”, he said, grinning. Eric, from behind him, groaned.

“Looks like yeh caught Bernard, 's the meanest mother-hubbard'a all spahs on BLU.”

“ _Merde_ , Eric, you ass'ole!”, Bernard spat, and Grant gritted his teeth. However, the next thing he knew, a greasy gloved hand sped past his arm and hit the spy squarely on the nose, breaking it with an audible 'snap'. “ _BERDH!_ ”, the spy shouted, clutching his bruised face, but Jarrod merely grinned all the more cruelly.

“Oye, looks like you caught a pendejo, hook, line and stinker! Hmmm, let's see now... you liked telling those cabróns on your team, Jerry and Conner, to drown me... and you _brutalized_ mi amigo Brian... now how to let you pay for that...” Bernard meant to throw a punch at Jarrod, but Dwight, who had been standing off to the side, reloaded his self-made gun and took careful aim.

“One move, yeh _backstabbin' snake_ , an' ah'm gon' splatter that purdy head'a yers like an over-ripe melon on a shootin' range.”, he said, his words unwavering even though Grant knew he wouldn't pull the trigger. The spy clearly didn't wish to risk it: biting back a venomous reply, he looked defiantly at all of them, until Jarrod motioned for Deryk. “I have an excellent idea... Deryk, you still got that syringe gun?”

“Ja, aber vhy-?”, the medic said, only for Jarrod to motion impatiently at the man.

“Sólo quiero ver que este hijo de puta sufren. Can ya spare a syringe?” Sighing in mingled annoyance at being shut up by the pyro and slight apprehension at what the man was planning, Deryk nevertheless handed over one of the syringes from the gun, Grant noticed: instantly, Jarrod emptied the syringe and then walked over to the cup with the processed JumpStart, drawing the syringe full and then squirting out the minute measure of air that had entered the syringe, a small bead of liquid forming at the tip of the needle. “Oh, Bernard, this is gonna _hurt like nothing else..._ ”, the pyro said before plunging the needle right into the spy's leg, causing him to yelp twice: once when the needle went in and once when he started to feel the effects of pure caffeine entering his bloodstream. “Now you're gonna _run_ , Bernard.”

“Non, n-non...”, the spy protested, groaning in pain when Jarrod prodded his wounded shoulder. But Grant could already see that the man's pupils were contracting from far more than just pain. Even in the harsh artificial light, his pupils were mere pinpricks, his irises wide and trembling. “Berdh...” Then, suddenly, the man doubled over, clutching his stomach. “ _B-berdh!_ ”

“Someone kick him outteh here 'fore he throws up all over us?”, Eric said loudly, which was answered by his team's heavy, Egor, nodding and pulling the spy along by his healthy arm. Once they stood in the doorway, the Russian flung the spy bodily from the room, against the wall, where the man crumpled, twitching.

“J-j'vois... je vois... chais-pas... eet cannot be real...”, the man muttered loudly, and Jarrod gritted his teeth, firing a flare right beside the man's head, causing him to jump upright and look around before finally doing as the pyro had said and running off. However, Grant was past noticing it, because the next thing they knew, an explosion from the other side of the room demolished his sentry. He hadn't even noticed that it had been attacked because of how focused he'd been on the caught spy, and the music that was still playing had drowned out the beeps of his PDA. A second explosion took out Eric's sentry, leaving only Dwight's – but then, Dwight suddenly grabbed into thin air next to his sentry and another spy materialized, dropping his knife when the usually shy engineer kicked him hard in the groin.

“AAAAAHHH!! ...Merde, let me go, laborer!”

“Conner. Should'a known.” Again, it was Eric that spoke up, and again Jarrod punched the spy.

“Shoulda known indeed – pendejo backstabbing motherfuckers always come in pairs. So you thought you could take out all three sentries while we were distracted chewing up su amiguito gilipollas? Tried to sap the wrong sentry, pendejo, Dwight's sentry is muy speciál. ...Well, let's see what we can do to _him_... Oh, lo sé! Of course! Dwight, where's the rest of that JumpStart go to? The stuff that got separated out?”

“Uh, down in th'bottom'a mah dispenser, there oughta be a reservoir, Jarrod, son – but that ain't nuthin' but pure sugar-”

“Oh, I know. This cabrón is gonna die _hard_.”, the pyro said with a broad, extremely cruel grin that reminded Grant of the way Gabriel had looked when he'd moved away from the intelligence room only half an hour before. Drawing the syringe full of the syrupy, green liquid and then pushing out the air from the syringe, a small droplet of green goop beading at the tip of the needle, he addressed Dwight: “Hold him down. Deryk, doc, I can use your help, hombre... help me find a vein to shoot him up with this shit.” The medic gave Jarrod a look that said 'really?' but complied anyway, methodically using the spy's own knife to cut open his suit's right arm and then using the fabric to tie off the man's arm, after which he tapped his elbow to find the vein.

“Give zhat to me, herr Dangerfeld, ja?”, he said, snatching the syringe out of the pyro's hands and injecting the green gooey stuff right into the spy's bloodstream. Then, when he drew out the syringe, he tied off the wound with another strip of the man's own suit sleeve. “Okay, it might be best to stand back now-”, the medic said – and not a moment too soon, because suddenly Conner convulsed and dropped to the ground. “Egor, drag him out of zhe vay.”

“Naw, let me.”, Dwight said, taking the spy's foot and dragging him swiftly to the space in between the two doors leading into the intelligence room from the hallway connecting it to the battlefield. As soon as he let go of the spy, the man's eyes rolled back into his head and he started seizing, blood dripping from the corners of his mouth soon enough to indicate he'd bitten his tongue.

“Think of me as you die, hijo de perra!”, Jarrod called to the spy's twitching form, turning to the rest of the men. “Okay, that's _two_ spies down, I wonder what's next-” The answer to that came in the form of a southern drawl from beyond the hallway.

“Ah _know_ yeh're in there, yew yelleh-bellied sonuvabitch! Y'ain't escapin' me tuhday!!”

“Awh, fer the love'a _Gawd_ an' his _angels_...”, Dwight groaned, checking his shotgun and walking quickly towards the middle of the room again, to his own dispenser. Grant didn't need to ask who it was anymore, not after what he'd heard. Indeed, if he listened closely over the music and the beeps and whirs of their machinery, he could hear the subtle whirs of finer machinery, betraying the Gunslinger prosthetic. “Lance, _yew_ is the yellah-bellied sonuvabitch 'ere – y'oughta know sendin' in spahs ain't gon' help yeh...”

“Ah ain't sent in no spahs!”, the man said loudly, and Grant suddenly got an idea. He motioned to Eric and Dwight and then to Jarrod, signing his plan to them and getting approving nods from them. As Jarrod moved off, the younger engineer eagerly covered the sound of his running footsteps by speaking to his nemesis.

“Lance, yew are in fer a world'a hurt, pardner – walk 'way again. An' take Benj' with yeh – don't think ah can't hear 'im breathin' out there.” A deep and angry groan issued from the hallway, followed by irate words from the BLU engineer.

“Yew are gon' pay fer humiliatin' me, an' yeh're gon' pay fer it right 'ere an' right now, Markham – as fer what yew an' yer li'l twitchy fucktoy did t'me-”

“He ain't mah 'fucktoy', Lance – maybe 's like that fer yew an' Toothless-”

“If they even _got_ dicks tuh fuck with in the first place, son. Wouldn't be surprised if'n they ain't-”, Grant eagerly added, wanting to get both men outside riled up enough so they wouldn't pay any heed to anyone approaching – Jarrod would be coming up behind them any second – and succeeding with surprising ease.

“ _Yew_ , whoever y'are, are gon' _pay_ fer tha'!! First ah'm gon' kill that li'l coward Markham an' piss on 'is corpse, then ah'm gon' gut his li'l lover an' leave him tuh bleed out while he respawns, an' then ah'm comin' in tuh kill _yew_ an' piss on _yer_ corpse as well, you son'f a whore!” Mumbled and incomprehensible words followed, answered again by Lance, whose rageful and cruel grin was apparent in his tone of voice as he spoke on. “...An' Benjamin's got some unfinished business with yeh, Markham... said he made a promise tuh yew that he wants tuh keep...” Grant couldn't blame Dwight for paling: after all, the 'promise' the other man had made was to rape him, and from what he'd picked up, the man was just as bad of an animal as they came, if not the worst. However, the next thing that Lance said was abruptly cut off: “So yew gonna- _Benj'!_ ” The sounds of a scuffle sounded, as well as a sickening crunch of metal against bone and the dry 'thud' of metal hitting flesh, and then a startled gasp.

“D-dwight, it's okay... _ugh..._ okay to come over here, a-amigo...” Jarrod's voice sounded strained, so much so that when Dwight moved, Grant found himself and Eric following. When they rounded the corner, they saw a profusely bleeding Lance on his knees, Jarrod's Axtinguisher laying beside him, the barbed wire of it tightly coiled around the man's neck, tiny trickles of blood running down Lance's neck; behind the man, Jarrod sat, one knee pushed against the engineer's back and the barbed wire wound tightly around his hands, which were liberally covered in blood that probably originated from Benjamin, whose bodyparts were already fading from view. “Watch this pendejo kick the bucket _slowly_.”, the pyro ground out, but Dwight shook his head.

“Naw, son, he's a coward an' he deserves tuh go like a coward. Let 'im git up an' turn him 'way from our intel room.”, he said, loading up his shotgun. When Jarrod gently tugged on the barbed wire, causing some of the barbs to tear scratches into Lance's throat, Grant wondered what the youngest engineer's idea could be until he placed his shotgun squarely against Lance's back, right over where his heart would be located. “Y'ain't dyin' quickly, y'ain't dyin' painlessly, but 'least yeh'll be able tuh look yerself in the eye fer this way'a dyin' slowly, Lance – consider it _mercy_.”

“Yew fuckin' _weak-hearted-_ AAAAGHH!”, the man said, the force of the shotgun blast to his back tearing half of his torso apart while the resultant force pushed his neck right into the barb-wire noose Jarrod had made and blood gushed from the deep cuts it made. All in all, when Lance sagged, gurgling, Grant had to admit that it was maybe still cruel and somewhat vindictive, but it was a far cry from having the latino pyro torture the man.

“...Ai, amigo...”, Jarrod said, allowing Lance's body to fall away from them, blood pooling on the floor at the BLU engineer's feet, “...that was amazing! Increíble, the way you just _owned_ his ass...”

“Ah, he... he d'served it... ah always thought he didn't know 'bout Benjamin wantin' tuh-” Jarrod interrupted him as he calmly wound the barbed wire back around his Axtinguisher with careful, deliberate movements, betraying that he didn't like the badly veiled mention of the BLU's intention to rape the young engineer. Remembering what little Gabriel had told him about his friend and fellow pyro, Grant could understand that all too well.

“Oh, believe me, the only reason why that cabrón soldier was already dead, Dwight, was 'cause he fired a crit rocket at me and I bounced it right back at him. Splattered him across the walls. Then, el ingeniero cagado tried to punch me with his mechanical hand, hit my Axtinguisher, untangled the barbed wire, and before you know it I'm wrapping it around his neck like I'm decorating a christmas tree. Pero guau, lo mataste bien!”, he admitted, clapping Dwight on the back with a broad grin. “Oye-”

“ _Scheisse!_ ” The German curse issuing from inside the room made sure that the four of them ran back inside the room to find a sudden plethora of BLU men pouring from the vents overhead: two soldiers, two pyros, a demoman, a heavy-medic pair and two scouts already stood in the room, Dwight's unsappable sentry was laying in rubble at the bottom of the staircase, and of the three dispensers only one still stood – Dwight's, standing in the middle of the room despite heavy enemy fire, still playing music. A sharp shot rang out in time with Egor's instant death, causing Deryk to look around in clear anger, and then a sniper dropped down right in front of Grant, who swung his Southern Hospitality readily into the man's shoulder, causing Jarrod to grin and fire a flare right at the man, igniting him.

“Jerry, pedazo de mierda australiano, thought ya'd never drop in and say hi!”, he said cruelly as he swung his Axtinguisher right into the man's back, causing him to go down with a startled cry, by which time Jarrod was already moving on to his next victim while Grant and Eric swapped to their shotguns and shot at the intruders. However, the group of five was barely a match for the men that were in the room. Deryk, having stood right in the line of fire of the attacking heavy, didn't even manage to swap his medigun for his syringe gun or bonesaw. Eric managed to kill the demoman and one of the scouts before succumbing to the fire of one of the pyros' flamethrower, and he himself got the second scout and the medic eliminated before the heavy sprayed bullets his way and he sagged against the wall, feeling blood drain from him slowly from the five or so bullet wounds in his legs and stomach. He couldn't stand anymore but wasn't wounded badly enough to exsanguinate quickly, forced to either watch the conclusion of the battle or beg for a mercy shot from the pyros. One of them was Sam, he was sure of it: the specific tarnishes of her suit and the way she held her Backburner were telltale. However, Dwight and Jarrod weren't yet out for the count: Sam shrieked when Dwight's shotgun blast tore into her – his self-made Frontier Justice _glowed_ from the added energy the mounted device gave his shots – while Jarrod kept the other pyro and the heavy occupied. Another shot of Dwight and Sam fell, but his shot at the heavy got the bulky BLU to turn to the unfortunate engineer and spray him and his dispenser with bullets, causing Dwight to get pushed out of range of the medigas and die as a result of his injuries. Jarrod's retaliation against the heavy was swift, but it also exposed him to the fireaxe of the enemy pyro, who admittedly was the last one of the attacking BLUs to still be standing. Jarrod fell to the ground when the BLU swung his fireaxe into his leg: after that, the enemy pyro removed his gas mask and grinned down cruelly at the Chilean.

“ _Told_ you I'd get ya, you Chili tosser... oh, killin' you is going to be such a _treat_... how to even _start?_ ” A shadow passed over Grant's face and he opened one eye – the gesture took a surprising amount of effort, but his grin, which was all he could still do with his entire body slowly starting to grow heavy and cold, took no energy at all. James remained oblivious of the danger, turned with his back to the room, fully focused on Jarrod and speaking to him in a vindictive tone: “Now, you and that giant of a friend of yours _liked_ me getting things shoved up my arse, let's say we do the same to you, huh, _Jarrod_? See how much of that Axtinguisher of yours _fits_ up there, I'll bet it can go a _long_ way with how you bloody screw anything on legs-” Suddenly, however, James was lifted from his feet, hoisted up in the air by a scarred hand having closed tightly around his throat, and his fireaxe wrested from his control by Gabriel, who then threw the BLU pyro hard against the wall, where he crumpled, clearly having broken something.

“ _Now_ I've got you, Henderson, you motherfuckin' fils de garce sale... Oh, I'm gonna enjoy this. Three times, ya know what that means, British fucktard?”, he said, and the BLU pyro's eyes widened. “Let's see, how to off ya in such a way that you're _never_ gonna forget that messin' with Jarrod or Sam or _anyone_ on _any_ of these fuckin' teams, RED _or_ BLU, is gonna get you hunted by me? ...Oho, I think I know just the fuckin' way...” Gabriel grabbed Grant's wrench, which had fallen from his hands, from the floor and walked over to the BLU pyro, using the sharp knife-edge the engineer had mounted on it to cut open his enemy's fireproof suit. And then, Grant saw, he started running the knife with meticulous, curt motions over the man's exposed upper body, harvesting pained cries from the man he was about to dominate. Then, he took a step back to admire his handiwork, nodding and grinning. “Bien, and now to make sure the message _sticks_...” He grabbed James' own flamethrower and pulled loose the pilot light, allowing him to move it slowly over the man's torso. If the man had cried out in pain before, now he was _howling_ , and thrashing wildly against Gabriel's knee keeping him down on the ground. “Tais-toi, connard merdique foutu!”, Gabriel said, punching the man right in the face loosely, causing him to cough and spit out a dislodged tooth. Then, once he was sure that his work was finished to his satisfaction, Gabriel walked over to Jarrod, pulling him upright. “Regardes, Chili-boy, think that'll be a good reminder for him not to come after you again, or not to shit with mon ange again?”, the taller of the two asked, and Jarrod laughed cruelly.

“Sí, muy bien, amigo – that'll make him think twice about trying anything!”

“Alright, then, now for the fun part – killing him. Mind getting him to open his mouth nice an' wide, Jarrod, mon ami?”, Gabriel asked – Grant felt himself slipping into unconsciousness but willed himself to keep his eyes open just long enough to see the conclusion of his fellow team member's revenge. Jarrod kneeled down next to James and picked up Gabriel's Axtinguisher, raising it overhead and then swinging it down hard into the BLU pyro's crotch, causing the man to scream in clear agony, at which point Gabriel forced his Detonator into the man's mouth and grinned down at him before pulling the trigger and splattering the floor beneath James' head with blood and viscera. Grant shook his head minutely – it was all he could manage before he slipped into unconsciousness.

When he respawned, Dwight was right beside him, rifling through the supply cabinet.

“Ah, yeh're respawned too, Grant! C'mon, if'n they attack like tha' again, we ain't gon' be able tuh hold 'em off no more – ah jus' respawned, an' Eric left jus' a few seconds ago...” Grant nodded, quickly picking up his gear again and running down the stairs, positioning himself once again beside Dwight's dispenser, on top of which the platter of now cold treats still stood, alongside the cup of coffee which was...

“Empty?”, Grant muttered just as he built out his sentry to level three. Dwight hadn't touched the coffee cup anymore since he'd put it on there, and neither had anyone else. His next thought, that the coffee cup had fallen off the dispenser and had been put back on by someone, was also invalidated because there were no coffee stains on the floor anywhere – plus he had seen it standing on the dispenser when Gabriel entered... “'Ey, Eric, d'yew drink this 'ere coffee, pardner?”, he asked, and the other engineer turned to him with a firm shake of his head as his dispenser shuddered and built out to its fully-equipped form again.

“'s Dwight's cup, pardner, ah ain't drinkin' from someone else's cup.”

“Never yeh mind mah coffee, pardner.”, Dwight reacted, blushing softly – it was at that point that Grant spotted the note that lay underneath the cup. He quickly pulled it out from underneath and gave it a quick glance – not that he saw much of it, because Dwight had it pulled from his hands in the blink of an eye. “An' _never yeh mind tha'_!” The note had stated 'you owe me more than a cup of coffee, darlin'' and it had smelled like the faintest trace of perfume, but surely there was no one on either team that wore _perfume_ like that?

“Grant, mon ami, mind lookin' sharp? Otherwise the enemy is gonna think on est pas attentif...”, Gabriel said as he detached himself from the wall where he'd been excitedly discussing with Jarrod what he'd done to the enemy pyro, causing Grant to sigh.

“Ah'm always lookin' sharp. Yeh did real great killin' tha' there enemy pahro. B-but what'd yeh do t'him 'fore?” Instantly, Gabriel grinned broadly, clearly relishing in the glory of his revenge.

“I cut a li'l message into him an' then _burnt_ it in so it would stick...”

“An' whut 'message' were tha', son?”, Grant asked, feeling more than a little apprehensive, to which not Gabriel but _Jarrod_ answered, grinning just as broadly as his friend was.

“Nothin' special, amigo... 'Elena's bitch'...” The two pyros, for some reason, _roared_ with laughter, and Grant turned to Eric, who had been following the exchange from a distance and who was now shaking his head.

“Yew know whut tha' oughta mean, Eric, pardner?”, he asked, and the other man nodded.

“Yeah – y'remember that li'l Mexican number tellin' us 'bout whut happened at them pahro evaluation days? Tha' prostitute yer Gabriel an' Jarrod hired fer givin' sumthin' 'special' tuh James were called Elena. ...How them fellers think James 's gon' leave 'em alone now...”, the other engineer sighed, shaking his head even more deliberately, but before either of them could speak, Dwight grinned and pointed into the hallway, which had suddenly become _alive_ with their teammates, all of whom moved in a tightly-knit group towards their intel room, shooting at the BLU teams' gathered members as they went. One of the group broke free and ran forward – Grant grinned as it turned out to be Pierre, who was carrying the intel case and who was unloading his Ambassador freely into the skulls of a couple of unfortunate BLUs, among whom Theo and Jane. The BLUs tried their best to break the RED wall keeping them from the man carrying their intelligence, but to no avail: Pierre skidded to a halt next to Eric and dropped the briefcase on the ground, instantly causing the horn to sound and the Administrator to announce that RED had won. Instantly, Gabriel and Jarrod moved off outside, eager to take a victory shot if they still had the chance, leaving no one but the three engineers standing in the room.

“Whew, this were an intense day...”, Eric said, patting his sentry, causing it to instantly turn back into a blueprint that he put into a satchel on his belt again, moving to his dispenser to do the same, and Grant chuckled.

“It were, yeah, but in th'end we won...”

“In the end, all it came down tuh...”, Dwight said, collapsing his sentry into a blueprint again as well, “...was that our bullets _hit_ an' them BLU bullets _missed_...” He walked to his dispenser, but a slight waver of the air behind him – minute, but still unmistakeable – got Grant to blink. It couldn't be an enemy spy, of that he was sure: cloaking devices switched off the instant a battle was decided, after all. But if it wasn't a spy, then who could it be? However, after an intense minute of looking at the spot intently, he didn't see anything again and he sighed, shaking his head.

“...Yeah. Luck was on our side 'gain.” Dwight nodded, blushing softly and quickly picking up his dispenser blueprint again, rolling it with extra deliberation as he leaned against the wall where his sentry had stood, speaking softly to himself with a glad smile. Grant meant to comment on it, only for him to remember that he was guilty of speaking to the thought of Carol after battle as well. Perhaps Dwight was telling his lover's mental image that he'd fought well, commending him for the attempts he'd made: that would explain the soft chuckle the youngest engineer gave and the way his cheeks seemed to light up. “...Tha' there feller...”, he muttered softly, and Eric laughed quietly.

“Bet yew two cold ones tha' scout'a his is gon' come runnin' in here in two minutes.”

“Heh, bet _yew_ two cold ones tha' Dwight ain't gon' wait fer him.”


End file.
